Blink - Beyond the Easter Egg
by NewDrWhoFan
Summary: How I imagine the Doctor and Martha survived their trip to 1969, using Sally Sparrow's clues to work to leave clues for Sally Sparrow... Regular, non-AU version of "Blink", just to fill in the gaps, connect the missing dots, etc. Work in progress (Sorry, I'm not going to tell you how this ends before I wrap up my 10Rose AU...)
1. Don't Leave Home Without It

_With all the work I've put into my 10Rose AU version of "Blink", I thought, why not do one for Martha and the Doctor in the good ol' TV-verse?_

 _Here's my take on what happened on the other side of the Easter egg :)_

 _As yet un-beta'd._

 _Disclaimer: I don't own_ Doctor Who _. Nor do I get anything from writing these stories - except wonderful, constructive reviews. Wink, wink; nudge, nudge ;)_

* * *

 **Chapter 1 - Don't Leave Home Without It**

Martha Jones held onto the TARDIS' console for dear life. She let out a small scream as the ship dipped in a half-second free-fall, then was thrown back as they landed.

The Doctor scrambled up from his own place on the floor to set the handbrake.

Martha was at his side by the time he'd made it around to the scanner. She couldn't make heads nor tails out of the Gallifreyan symbols, but she recognized the Doctor's furrowed brow. "What is it? What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's nothing... much. Just a timey... wimey... blip," he said lightly, gesturing for her to head towards the ramp, but his gaze kept traveling back to the scanner.

"Doesn't look like nothin'," Martha countered. "Look, Leo can wait," she offered "Why don't we go an' see what's goin' on?"

The Doctor looked at her, surprised. "Do you want to?" he asked. "I mean, you asked for some time -"

"I've had time," she assured him, smiling.

After their stint in 1913, he'd dropped her off at a Quaspentian spa for a whole week. She wasn't sure what he'd done in her absence; he'd left with the Family in chains, and came back for her looking like he should be the one getting free massages - for at least a month. They'd gone to check in on Tim Latimer and his fellow WWI veterans on Remembrance Day, after that. Then, the Doctor had offered her yet another trip somewhere relaxing; but Martha had asked to just stop and visit her own family before they did anything else.

Hence, London, complete with timey-wimey blips. "'Sides," Martha reasoned, "if there's somethin' up here in London, I can brag about savin' his skin after it's sorted," she observed.

The Doctor grinned. "I'll whip us up a tracking device."

* * *

"Perfect timing," the Doctor said thirteen minutes later when he looked up to see Martha walking back into the console room. "You can help me with this." He beckoned her over to where he was seated on the floor, and held out a magnifying glass.

"What's that?" Martha asked.

The Doctor looked at his own extended hand. "A magnifying glass," he said, slowly.

"Thanks," Martha said, taking the tool. "But I meant the mess of spare parts and gizmos in your lap."

"Ah," the Doctor corrected himself. "We've materialized about two hundred yards from the anomoly, but I didn't want to move the TARDIS any closer. This," he said, "will help us find the source, or at least pinpoint the location."

"Of the timey-wimey-ness."

"Exactly!" the Doctor said happily, patting the device. "My timey-wimey detector." He picked up the trans-phasal modulator from the floor beside him, and carefully extracted the main crystal. "But, it's not quite done," he said to Martha. "And I could really use some help with getting this positioned just right."

She knelt down next to him, and he adjusted her arm so that she was holding the magnifying glass over the detector just where he needed it. "Perfect," he said, and picked up the sonic screwdriver from where it lay on the grating on his other side. Ordinarily, he'd be doing this sort of work at his desk, but the components he needed had all been here in the console room, and it was really just this last part that needed a delicate touch...

"Almost done?" Martha asked.

"Just a little more..." he said, as he screwed the crystal into position. "Done!" he exclaimed, and snapped the cover on as he jumped to his feet. "Trade?" he asked, holding out his hand for the magnifying glass and depositing the detector in Martha's arms. He tossed the glass in under the grating, kicked a few cannibalized contraptions in with it, and closed the floor. "Come on then," he said, helping Martha up and relieving her of the device. "Let's go make this detour worthwhile, shall we?"

* * *

Martha closed the TARDIS doors while the Doctor fiddled with the timey-wimey detector. It looked to her like some sort of hand-held hoover with fairy lights and a radar screen. "So, how's that work?" She asked.

The torrent of techno-babble that came from the Doctor's mouth left her stunned. "Martha, you alright?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah, sorry," she said, shaking her head. "All I got out of that was somethin' about particles, an' it bleeps at you when you're close." She shook her head.

"Sorry," he said, appearing genuinely contrite. He clicked the sonic screwdriver into a receptacle on the side of the timey-wimey detector, then put on some bright pink earbuds that were wired to the device.

"Nice earphones," Martha commented. "What're we lookin' for?" she asked.

"Shh," the Doctor hushed her. "Can't here the bleeps," he added, twiddling a dial.

Martha looked around while the Doctor fiddled. They were just outside of a gated estate. "Wester Drumlins," the sign read. The house looked well and truly abandoned - as did the car next to the TARDIS.

She walked over to the vehicle parked on the grass. Its engine was running, but she couldn't see anyone inside. "Hello?" she called as she approached, but as she looked in the open windows, she could tell that it really was empty. "Odd," she said to herself.

"It's definitely in there," the Doctor said, waving the detector from side to side towards the house. "Shall we?" he asked with a grin towards Martha.

"'S what we're here for," she answered, returning to the gate.

The Doctor disengaged the sonic from the detector, and opened the large padlock on the gate. Closing the gate behind them, he reinserted the sonic and led the way towards the main building.

"Whaddya think it is?" Martha asked in a hushed voice.

"There's trace artron energy," he answered just as quietly. "Could be a time-traveler, could be where someone traveled from, could be any number of things." He glanced away from the readings on the device to give Martha a wink. "Only one way to find out."

* * *

"Sounds like it's upstairs," the Doctor observed, resuming his detecting after having sonic'ed the front door. He still couldn't quite make sense out of the readings he was getting, but the bleeps were definitely closer together when he pointed the sensor up.

Their own footsteps were the only sounds in the house as they climbed the staircase. They reached the landing, and followed the detector's signals to the room at the end of the upstairs hall. The door was ajar, so he toed it open.

Inside were three, stone statues.

"Angels?" whispered Martha.

"'Weeping Angels, hiding their shame eternally'..." The quote sprang instantly to mind at the sight of the statues, but there was something else in the back of the Doctor's mind that was trying to work its way to the forefront...

"Is this it?" Martha asked, whispering. "The anomaly?"

The Doctor scanned the three - no, four, he now saw - statues with the detector. "Definitely more to you than meets the eye," he said to the stone figures.

"They look like plain, old stone," Martha observed.

"It's... weird," he admitted. "They are stone, but look at these readings. There's the artron energy, but they haven't been through the Vortex." He pulled the sonic free of the detector and scanned them with it on a different setting. He had an idea. "Hold this for a minute?" he asked Martha, handing off the detector.

"Got it," she said, taking it from him and tucking it under her arm.

He pocketed the sonic and pulled out his TARDIS key and a length of string. He quickly tied the key onto a loop which he then held out in front of him on the tip of a pencil. "Not nearly as impressive, but let's see what it does," he told her, extending the pencil towards one of the statues.

The key twitched.

Martha let out a small gasp, and grabbed onto the sleeve of his trenchcoat "So, not just stone," she whispered.

The Doctor looked closely at the Angel in front of him. "Have we met?" he asked, trying to sort through his memory. "Because you seem awfully fam-" Ah.

"Doctor?" Martha asked as he began backing them out of the room.

"Just keep away from them, Martha." He had seen the statues before. Just for a moment, in a photograph in an envelope that he'd stashed away without investigating. "Sally Sparrow," he said. "That's how I know you. Nineteen Six-"

* * *

"-Ty Nine."

In a flash, the statues had vanished, together with the old house; and had been replaced by a London street complete with a double-decker bus heading straight towards the Martha and the Doctor.

The Doctor could tell Martha was still dazed by their sudden transportation, but thanks to his faster recovery he was able to move her quickly and safely to the pavement.

As the bus rolled by, the Doctor looked back at the crunching, snapping sound coming from beneath its tires.

"What was that?" Martha asked groggily.

"My timey-wimey detector!" he answered, realizing Martha must have dropped it in the street. He quickly seated her on a nearby bench and darted in after the bus to try and salvage some of the pieces, ignoring the honks of protest from the oncoming cars.

"Doctor, what just happened?" Martha asked as he stepped back out of the street with a woefully small percentage of the device in his hands.

Just as he was about to answer, the Doctor looked at the pencil in his hand. He shifted the wreckage of the detector into one arm while he patted down his pockets. "My key," he said distractedly. "Where's my TARDIS key?" he asked, looking around on the pavement. "In the street?" He didn't see it there, either.

"Doctor?" Martha asked again.

"No. Please, don't let them have it," he said, hoping against hope.

"What's goin' on, Doctor?" Martha asked, calling him back to himself.

The full weight of their dilemma settled in the pit of the Doctor's stomach as he answered lightly, "A bit of time travel without a capsule."

"Without a capsule," Martha repeated. "Without... what? Without the TARDIS?"

He nodded. Without the TARDIS, and he may have just handed the Angels the means to take the TARDIS for their own.

"How? Where is it?" Martha asked. "I mean, when are we? Looks like London, but we've gone back, right?" she asked, looking around.

"It was the Angels, whatever they are," he told her. He didn't need the sixties-era clothing on the passersby or the old style double-decker to know exactly what year it was. "And we're in 1969."

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	2. What Went Around Comes Around

_Originally beta'd by **SamiWami** and **maven13** , before I went and rearranged some stuff... _

* * *

**Chapter 2 – What Went Around Comes Around**

Martha glanced away from the Doctor's worried face to take in their surroundings. It was weird. It certainly seemed like the middle of London; but she'd never heard of half the shops, the cars and buses were all monstrous gas-guzzlers, and there was nothing retro about the bell-bottoms and other fashions displayed on the pedestrians. "I really should've gone to see Leo, first," she said at last.

Their eyes met again and the Doctor's expression seemed to clear. He grinned at her as he sat himself next to her on the bench and began shifting the former timey-wimey detector in his arms, searching his coat pockets. "If I'm right," he said, up to his armpit in an interior pocket of his overcoat, "this is all just part of the plan." He withdrew a purple folder with a shout of triumph. "Thank you, Sally Sparrow!"

"You said that name before," Martha observed as he dumped the detector into the pocket from which he'd just pulled the folder. "Who's she?"

"Remember the hatching? London, 2008?" the Doctor asked.

Oh, Martha remembered. She doubted she'd ever forget. Seeing the Doctor knocked unconscious was bad enough, but... "Ya mean when I had to drag you back to the TARDIS? In my heels and skirt with you all covered in rotten dragon egg? That hatchin'?"

"Sorry?" the Doctor said in a small voice.

Martha just shrugged it off with a smile. "Jus' par for the course, with you."

"But yes," the Doctor went on, "Sally Sparrow, she's the one who held us up when we first got out of the cab," he explained. "Said I'd need this when I got stuck in 1969, and to make sure I had it with me."

"So, we _are_ stuck." Martha sighed, and then really looked at the folder, noticing a photograph through the transparent cover. "Is that - that's one of the Angels," she said, "the same as the Angels in that room."

The Doctor nodded. "Took me too long to place them," he said thoughtfully. "I knew they looked familiar, but I was trying to remember when I'd met them before. Turns out I never had. I didn't think of this 'til it was too late, obviously."

"Obviously," Martha agreed. "What else is in the folder?" she asked. "How do we get back to the TARDIS?"

"No idea!" the Doctor said cheerfully. "Never opened it. Wasn't sure I should," he added. "From the way Ms. Sparrow was talking, it sounded like a circular paradox. And with those," he said knowingly, "the less you know, the safer things usually are all around." Then he shrugged. "And I sort of forgot about it after the dragons."

"But we can open it now, right?" Martha asked. "If she said you were gonna need it, now's what she gave it to you for."

"I do believe you're right," the Doctor told her. He looked around at the nearby shops then stood up from the bench. "How'd you feel about grabbing a bite to eat?"

* * *

It took the Doctor some more searching of his various pockets, but he eventually pulled out a fiver from 1968. It was tucked within a wad of currency from 1970 that he hadn't even realized he still possessed. Fortunately, it was enough to get a large portion of fish, chips and change (which is more than could have been said for 2007), and he and Martha brought their small lunch to a table by the front window of the chippy.

"Here goes," the Doctor said, opening the purple folder and shaking the contents out onto the table.

Amongst the papers, photographs and envelopes was a small object that clinked onto the plastic surface.

"My TARDIS key!" the Doctor realized, picking up the key, still threaded onto the string he had used at the house. "Well that's a load off my mind, I'll tell you. I was afraid the Angels might've gotten it."

"How'd it get in there?" Martha gasped.

"Sally Sparrow," the Doctor told her, returning the key to its rightful pocket. "Definitely a circular paradox," he said as they began sorting through the documents between bites of their dinner.

"Explain that again?" Martha said as she picked at her chips. " I mean, I've heard of 'em, but I've never quite gotten my head around the sci-fi -"

"Sci- _fact_ ," the Doctor corrected. "You're in one, right now."

"Right," she allowed, "but what started it?" she asked. "When did it begin? You had that key in your pocket in the folder, at the same time you were holdin' it up in front of the Angel statues in that house; you jus' didn't know it."

"And Sally Sparrow," the Doctor answered, "is going to get that key and put it into a purple folder just like this one, and hand it to us about a year later - for her - when we visited for the hatching."

"But, I know that's why it's called 'circular'," Martha responded, "but where's it come from? What caused it?"

The Doctor waved his hand, dismissively. "Time travel makes causality a little... wibbly," he told her. "Just... trust me. One of my many skills as a Time Lord just happens to be recognizing paradoxes such as this one, and figuring out how to close the loop. It'll never end," he said; but at Martha's startled, hopeless look explained, "but our part in it will, once we get back to the TARDIS."

Martha took the photographs he passed to her, arranging them one-handed on the table in front of her, while she ate. "Look at this," she said ten minutes into their task, picking one of them up to show him.

It looked to the Doctor like graffiti under wallpaper. Wallpaper from - "Wester Drumlins," he said after he swallowed his last bite of dinner.

"That's what it says," Martha told him, and flipped the photo around to show him the note scrawled on the back. "Eighth of June 2007."

"Six days after we were there," the Doctor calculated. "Except I didn't notice that then, did you?"

"No," Martha admitted, "but look at the signature. 'Love from the Doctor, 1969.'"

"Add that to our 'to do' list, then," he said, and put the photo on top of the pile of papers to his right.

"'To do'?" asked Martha.

"Ye-ah," the Doctor drawled, looking at the various items on their table, "it seems like we've got our work cut out for us to complete the paradox."

"Complete how? To get the TARDIS back?" she asked.

"That's the hope," he answered. "At first blush, it looks like Sally Sparrow was able to compile this folder thanks to clues _we_ left for her in 1969. And we were - or will be - able to do all that because of the folder she gave me. We just follow the directions to make sure everything happens the way it happened."

Martha nodded. "So, what's the first step?"

The Doctor gestured at the table. "This."

"Right," she said, returning the photograph to its place.

Minutes ticked agonizingly slowly by while the Doctor reworked his hypotheses with each new document he came across. Thus far, he had narrowed the probabilities to, oh, about three dozen or so.

He read through a letter from Katherine Wainwright, then handed it to Martha. It told him just a little bit more about the Angels, but didn't give him any insight into their current paradoxical predicament.

The Doctor picked up a transcript next, and read it twice over. "Of course," he muttered, wondering why he hadn't pieced it together earlier. "We have been lucky."

"How's that?" Martha asked, looking up distractedly from the letter she'd been reading.

"Very... very lucky." The Doctor repeated, pointing to the transcript in his hand. "They're the Lonely Assassins. Not fairy tales, not two different legends. They're real and they are one in the same."

"What are? The Angels?" asked Martha.

"The Weeping Angels... they're sort of a Time Lord fable," he told her. "They were supposed to be from way back, long before Rassilon even, nearly as old as the universe, they said. But the Lonely Assassins were more of a nightmare. They feed off of the potential energy of their victims' lives. That's why they sent us back in time. Trying to eat up all of the abstract might-have-beens. Unfortunately for them, we probably didn't give them much of a meal, being time-travelers and all. But oh, am I glad that I parked where I did. If they had gotten the TARDIS..." he shuddered.

"What?" Martha prompted.

"They could have wreaked some real havoc," he told her. "Wiped out a star, maybe. Or several."

"Good thing you've got your key back, then," she replied. Then with a gasp, reached down to check her own pocket. "'Kay," Martha told him, relaxing. "I've got mine, too."

The transcript went on the "to do" pile, and the Doctor picked up the next stapled packet of papers. It proved just as fascinating. "'The Mysterious DI Shipton'," he read aloud.

"Who's that?" asked Martha.

"'Born 8 October 1986, Died 9 June 2007, age... 59.'"

"Alright, I can add," Martha said, "an' that's not right."

The Doctor scanned through what seemed to be the detective inspector's personal timeline. "Ah," he said when he reached 2005. "15 July 2005, Assigned to, drum roll please, Wester Drumlins disappearances... 9 June 2007, Escorted Sally Sparrow to the Wester Drumlins impound... 21 March 1969, Owned a flat at a Kensington address for five years... then all the way back through to 9 June 2007, Dies in hospital." The man had had to live his way back to 2007, the Doctor thought gloomily, not at all encouraged.

Martha's mouth was slightly open as she took in what he had read to her. Then she blinked. "March of '69? When is it now? Can we look him up?"

"Sunday the 13th of April, at 4:47 in the afternoon," the Doctor answered, pausing to draw a hand over his face. They had been at this less than half an hour, but it was draining, trying to piece together the full picture of the paradox(es) from this limited supply of information. He flipped the page to see if Martha's idea was a safe one. "It seems like we do run into him," he said, reading over the summary of Billy Shipton's second meeting with Sally Sparrow in 2007. "But that's odd..." he trailed off, double-checking his mental math. "For us to have been sent back to the same year and city, if the Angels work the way I'm thinking they work, it had to be the same Angel," he told Martha. "But we were only sent back thirty-eight years, one month, nineteen days, eighteen hours -"

"Doctor..." Martha said, pleadingly, closing her eyes.

"Right. Sorry. But this makes it sound like DI Shipton arrived..." he glanced up at Martha, "... almost a month before we got here, even though he doesn't meet the Angels until a week after us."

"So?" Martha prompted.

"So," the Doctor said, mulling it over then nodding his head, "it's still worth checking out, but it might turn out to be part of a larger paradox."

"Great," Martha answered, popping the last of her chips into her mouth and picking up a napkin. "Anythin' about when we get the TARDIS back?"

The Doctor didn't exactly want to speak aloud the point that had him the most concerned. From what he could tell, nothing here actually confirmed they _would_ get the TARDIS back. "More 'how' than 'when'," he said vaguely, having finished reading the last of Sally Sparrow's notes. "She's not sent back by an Angel, so it's a matter of the programming on the control disk that'll determine when and where we find her. Still, it looks like we'll be here a little while." He braced himself and then broke the news. "You're gonna need a job."

"Funny, that," Martha said without missing a beat, "sounded like you said 'you'. But you must've said 'we'."

"We're gonna need more money than a few coins in change," he explained, avoiding her eyes.

"An' you've got two hands," she countered. "You gettin' a job, too?"

"I've got other things to do to make this all work." He picked through the papers again to prove his point. "I'm gonna have to rebuild the timey-wimey detector for one. Program a hologram and activation protocol for the TARDIS, create a control disk..." he risked a glance back at Martha, whose narrowed eyes told him she wasn't quite buying it. "That's all going to take time and money. Besides," he said, showing her a line in the transcript, "it says here you're working in a shop, and we've got to complete the paradox according to the directions or risk expanding it even further."

Martha took the transcript and read her line aloud."'We're stuck. All of space and time, he promised me. Now, I've got a job in a shop. I've got to support him!'" She scanned the page, then held the stack out to the Doctor accusingly. "I don't see where it says what you're doin'," she told him. "You could've gotten a job and just not complained..." she trailed off and looked at him, as if appraising him. "Naw, you're right," she said, nodding. "No way you'd've been workin' a normal, borin' job and not been complainin' about it."

The Doctor snatched the transcript back, feigning insult. She was, after all, spot on. But he wasn't about to argue the point if it let him off the hook - er, left him free to work on his side of things.

Martha sank her head onto her hand. "Where'm I gonna find a job?" she asked, although it seemed she was more musing to herself than asking the Doctor's advice. "A shop. Does this count? Think they're hirin' here?" She sighed. "Mum'd be so proud; uni was s'posed to _keep_ me from havin' to fry chips."

Unable to meet her despondent gaze, he looked back out through the window - and just narrowly managed not to laugh out loud.

"What?" Martha asked.

He nodded across the street over her shoulder at the building that had just caught his eye.

Martha twisted around to follow his line of sight. "What, Henriks?" she asked, turning back to face him.

"Help wanted, too," he observed.

Martha slumped in her seat, not nearly as encouraged as the Doctor had hoped.

* * *

 _To be continued..._

 _Next chapter'll explain Billy a bit more (no, he didn't actually get sent back a month before they arrived)._

 _Stay tuned; reality's about to really begin setting in, soon :)_

 _PS - If you've ever had questions about "Blink", please send them my way. I want to make sure I cover all applicable bases._

 _PPS - If you missed the story of the above-mentioned dragon-hatching, there's a version with Martha and Rose in Chapter 8 of my "Gridlock" AU._


	3. Message for You, Sir

_Originally beta'd by_ ** _SamiWami_** _before I rearranged some stuff...  
_

* * *

 **Chapter 3 - Message for You, Sir  
**

"See you tomorrow, then?"

Martha gave her winningest smile. "Bright 'n early." She turned and left the manager's office, a proud new hire at Henriks department store.

Alright, maybe not so much "proud" as "desperate and strangely fortunate". It had occurred to her that a Friday payday wasn't going to do them much good if the Doctor's spare change was all they had to get them through the week. But Martha knew there was no way she was going to get a cash advance on day one, not just having walked in off of the street.

Luckily for her, she'd managed to finagle herself pro-rated store credit against her first paycheck, starting after her first day.

The manager had at first looked at Martha like she was crazy for suggesting such a concept. But then he'd given her another once-over, said she could use some outfits closer to what they had on the sales floor, and agreed to the arrangement.

As she headed out of the store, she caught sight of the Doctor through the large, front shop windows. She stepped out onto the pavement, giving him a cheery thumbs-up when he looked up at her from the papers he'd been re-reading.

"You got the job?" he asked, enthusiastically.

"Don't sound so surprised," she teased.

Martha was half expecting a celebratory hug after he had returned the now-familiar purple folder to his pocket with a huge grin, but he slipped right past her and into Henriks. She stood, bewildered, for a moment, until he reappeared in the display window, snatching up the "Help Wanted" sign.

Martha just shook her head as she waited for him to join her.

He jogged through the doors and handed the sign to her. "That's yours, I believe," he said, then led the way down the street.

"D'ya even know if they were only lookin' for just one person?" Martha asked as they walked.

"It's tradition," he replied. "You get the job, you take down the sign. I saw it in a movie, once. I think."

Martha folded up the sign and stuck it into the Doctor's trench coat pocket. At his quizzical look, she explained, "My jacket hasn't got dimensionally-transcendent pockets. You carry it." She looked around, trying to get her bearings. "Where we headed?" she asked.

"Kensington," he answered. "To meet Detective Inspector Shipton."

Martha glanced up at him as they walked, noting the decidedly doubtful tone of voice. "Ya don't sound too sure of that," she said.

The Doctor bobbed his head as if weighing the options. "Well, I'm not," he admitted after a moment. "We've got his address, or what's supposed to be his address since March -"

"And it's April, now," Martha put in.

"And it's April, now," he allowed, "but I really don't think the Angels work that way. Maybe... the records were wrong. Maybe..."

He trailed off, so Martha spoke up, hopefully. "Maybe... he doesn't buy the flat 'til after we find the TARDIS, and we bring him back to March so he can do it?"

The Doctor seemed a little worried when he first looked at her, but then a smile slowly grew. "Maybe," he agreed. "Or, maybe he'll be there when we get there, after all," he added, with a shrug and a grin. "Only one place to find out, really."

"Kensington," Martha ventured.

"Precisely," the Doctor answered.

"And, when's it say we get the TARDIS back?"

"When's what say?" he asked, suspiciously tugging on his ear lobe.

"The folder," Martha told him, raising an eyebrow at his obvious avoidance. "When does it say we'll see the TARDIS again? Doctor?"

He put his hands in his trouser pockets before answering. "Well, there're quite a few things I've gotta figure out, before that can happen," he told her, not quite meeting her eyes. "There are things in the folder I don't understand yet, like why an Angel was trying to hit Sally Sparrow with a stone, how Billy Shipton got sent back to London before us - if, indeed, he did. I don't even know how I'm going to make the control disk that will bring the TARDIS to us. And I've somehow got to rebuild the timey-wimey detector so that we know when she does get here."

He still hadn't answered her question, and she knew he knew it. "It doesn't say, does it?"

He hesitated, then looked at her. "No," he admitted. "All Sally Sparrow knew was that the TARDIS dematerialized. She didn't know when or where it went."

"Oh," Martha said, quietly, her heart sinking. "When I saw your TARDIS key in the folder..."

"Yeah, me, too," he said quietly, looking at his feet.

"So, we might actually be here, what?" she asked. "A year?" Martha's heart sank even as she said it. After three months looking after him, hiding from the Family, she'd only taken a week off...

The Doctor looked up at her, evidently not following.

"You said that money was from 1970, right?"

"Yeah?" the Doctor acknowledged.

"So, if you're here in the seventies," Martha reasoned, "could the past, future you take us back or find the TARDIS?"

"It's a possibility," the Doctor conceded, "but the less I have to deal with myself, the better off the universe at large tends to be."

* * *

When they reached DI Shipton's apartment complex, the Doctor couldn't detect anything particularly unusual from the outside. It was a whitish, concrete sort of a thing with fairly uniform, rectangular windows. The neighborhood was certainly upscale, but this particular building wouldn't seem out of place - to him, at least - if it were in the same block as Rose's old home on the Powell Estate.

They followed the walk in under the carport where the Doctor chivalrously opened the door to the lobby and followed Martha inside.

"The newlyweds!" The cheerfully-shrieked greeting (which stopped both of them in their tracks) had issued from a middle-aged woman behind the office window.

The Doctor's first impression was that she must be Jackie Tyler's older, Irish sister - which made absolutely no sense, of course, considering any number of factors, not least of which was their timeline. A second glance confirmed they actually looked close to nothing alike, and he realized it must only have been the volume of her voice that had caused his momentary, terrified nostalgia.

He looked carefully around, making sure she was addressing them, and caught Martha doing the same. Newlyweds, are we? he thought. Then, thinking quickly as always, the Doctor took Martha's left hand and plunged his own into his overcoat pocket. "Mrs. Phelen!" he greeted enthusiastically, having taken note of the nameplate on the front desk behind which the woman was now standing.

"I told ya, it's Dana," the woman demurred as they walked further in. "I'm not yet a grandma; don't need young folks such as yerselves to go an' make me feel older than I am."

The Doctor thought there was an expectation of understanding beneath her words, but he was completely at a loss. As the Doctor and Martha laughed politely along with her, he caught Martha's eye. She obviously recognized the situation for what it was, stunned though she was, and began fishing for information. "So, how've you been?" Martha asked.

"Oh, fine, fine. Sittin' by the phone day an' night, but that's me. But you, two!" She clapped her hands and then held out her arms as if to give them a hug from across the remainder of the lobby. "So good to have ya back! How was the honeymoon?"

The Doctor was still surreptitiously feeling around in his coat pocket. "Great," he and Martha answered together.

"It's a far sight chillier here, I'll bet," the woman laughed.

"Don't ya know it," Martha replied, politely.

"Well, yer honeymoon suite's all finished up, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know," Dana enthused.

"Our suite?" the Doctor asked, surprised. It was one thing to be recognized by someone they hadn't met yet. It was quite another to discover waiting accommodations of their own when they were actually trying to visit someone else. They were, however, caught up in multiple circular paradoxes. He should probably have expected it.

"Just this morning, he gave me the keys," she explained. She reached down behind the desk, then produced said keys, jangling on a tagged chain.

"So he did," the Doctor observed. DI Shipton was the "he", he presumed.

Or hoped.

He silently congratulated himself on finally finding the item he was digging for in his pocket, and reached his now-bedecked left hand out to retrieve the keys. "That was nice of him," he said, noting the tag labeled "Mr. & Mrs. J. Smith". Oh, poor Martha...

* * *

Martha felt her face heat up as the Doctor showed her the tag on their keys. Why couldn't fate just let her forget about John Smith and his human-falling-in-love-with-anyone-but-her escapades? Up until that moment, Martha had been fully prepared to play along, even if she knew he'd never think of her that way.

"'Nice' is the right word, there," Dana answered the Doctor, rather dreamily, regaining Martha's attention. "Oh, how I'll miss havin' him in every day. Always been one for a lovely accent, me. Course," she added, "I won't miss the noise an' the work crews. Gave us a chance to do some small renovations of our own, but no one ever likes the hassle, do they?"

"Guess not," Martha vaguely sort of noncommittally agreed. "Just have to make it worth the trouble, I s'pose," she consoled. She was more interested in the mysterious, dashing key-leaver than whatever renovations had been going on. "When did Billy leave?" she asked searchingly.

She was holding her breath (and thought the Doctor might actually have been as well) in the split second it took Dana to reply to her guess. "Oh, 'round about half ten, I'd say," she said.

Martha squeezed the hand that still held her own, and smiled at the Doctor. It had been him. DI Billy Shipton really had been here, a month ahead of them.

The Doctor grinned back at her. "Didn't happen to leave us a message, did he?" he asked.

"What was it, what was it?" Dana asked herself, looking off to the corner of the ceiling. "That's right!" She snapped her fingers triumphantly. "Just that if you want any changes to the decor, he'll be by in about a week to officially transfer the lease and all."

A week, Martha thought. Right when the Doctor expected Billy to first arrive. So... if he was there before them, but knew them, and expected to see them again in a week when the Doctor guessed he would first be sent back... they should all be meeting for the first time, then. It seemed to make a timey-wimey sort of sense.

"Well, then," the Doctor said, patting their joined hands with his free one, "If there's nothing else, we should take our leave of you, Dana," he nodded to the woman, "and I'll escort my wife to our chambers."

At the mention of their chambers, Martha felt her stomach sink, but Dana interrupted yet again. "Martha, dearie, what happened to your ring?" she asked, staring at their clasped hands.

"Wha-" Martha stammered, looking properly at the Doctor's hand. At some point since they had entered the lobby, the Doctor had managed to slip a wedding band onto his ring finger.

"Oh, sorry, Dear," the Doctor told Martha, reaching into his pocket, then bringing her left hand up between them. "Forgot I was still holding it for you. Here you go." He slid a plain, matching band onto her own finger. "G'night, Dana," the Doctor told the woman, taking Martha's hand and leading her through the lobby.

That settled, regardless of how unsettled her emotions might be, Martha waved her goodbye. "Nice to see you again," she said, as she walked with the Doctor towards the hallway leading to _their_ flat.

* * *

 _To be continued..._

 _ _Before the speculation begins, no, Jackie and Dana are NOT related. In any way. It's just that when I was picturing the sort of exuberant greeting I wanted from the manager, Jackie popped into my head. So I popped her into the Doctor's!__

 _ _Poor Martha.__


	4. On the Inside

_Originally beta'd by **SamiWami** , before I went and rearranged some stuff...  
_

* * *

 **Chapter 4 - On the Inside**

Martha had been right on the mark with her theory about Billy's arrival, the Doctor thought. Her smile had matched his own at this confirmation of the TARDIS' involvement. It didn't quite explain why the flat was in their name, now, but listed as being in Billy's name in Sally Sparrow's research... but that was a mere technicality.

The Doctor could just make out a sighed "young love" from Dana as they turned down the corridor leading to their ground-floor flat. "Seems you were right about Billy," he congratulated Martha as they walked down the hallway.

"Hope so," she replied distractedly.

"I thought you'd be thrilled," the Doctor said, surprised. He gave her hand a squeeze, before letting it go and settling his hands in his pockets. "It all works out!" he explained. "The Angels send Billy back in a week, we meet him and fix everything and get the TARDIS back, then bring him back to a month earlier for... redecorating? Well, we'll figure out what for. I'll take another look at the notes and figure it out. Or, maybe there'll be more clues in the flat."

Martha sighed before she replied. "Yeah, but that's just it," she said. "If we go to the trouble of buying a flat, what does that say about how long we'll be stuck here?" she asked, looking cautiously at him.

"Ah." That was about the sum total of what he had to say to that. The fact that Billy would be traveling back in time, then disappearing just before they had arrived did seem to indicate they would be reunited with the TARDIS. But how long would it take? And would that really be how it plays out? Or would there be some other time-traveling intervention? And how long would it take? Had he asked himself that already?

Something of his concern must have shown on his face. "I'm sorry," Martha offered. "You're right. We should just take a look inside and figure it out. And it'll be alright, even if it does take a while," she said. "We've still got each other; we make a good team. And we _will_ get the TARDIS back," she said confidently. "Just, in the meantime, we can imagine this flat is the TARDIS. Stuck somehow for a while, disguised as a flat."

"Disguised, right, I like that," the Doctor agreed, smiling a little at the notion. "So," the Doctor said, gesturing her towards the door, "shall we have a look at our TARDIS-in-disguise-that-isn't-going-anywhere-anyplace-soon?"

"Let's," Martha nodded.

The Doctor opened the door wide and looked inside.

They both stopped still, slack-jawed in shock at what lay within.

* * *

Any expectations of similarities to the Powell Estate vanished from the Doctor's mind as he looked through the doorway - unless, of course, he allowed for the few occasions on which he had parked the TARDIS inside Jackie's flat.

"Is this -" Martha began. "This isn't - it can't be - I mean, it's not, right?"

"No... it's not," the Doctor answered her as they both stepped slowly inside. "It's not the TARDIS, but it certainly does bear a striking resemblance, doesn't it?"

Martha just gave a light laugh as she looked around, wide-eyed.

It hadn't lasted long, but when he had first opened the door the Doctor's mind had actually reached out, expecting the TARDIS' presence.

However, along with noting the distinct lack of sentience, he'd also quickly processed the fact that what had at first appeared to be the console was actually some kind of mid-room fireplace with a greenish, translucent hood. Instead of a captain's chair, it was encircled by three, comfy-looking couches and little coffee tables on a slightly raised platform. The chimney duct was surrounded by lit, colored-glass hangings that recalled the Time Rotor. Curving, open staircases climbed along either wall from the doorway up to the next level, but the upstairs rooms flanked the main living space with its three-storey vaulted ceiling, leaving all three levels of windows on the opposite wall free to pour light into the main room. The window shutters and various lights and mirrors around the room were all designed to mimic the roundels that covered the console room's walls. While the flat was obviously of squarish construction, decorative screens had been arranged along the curve of the staircases to cut off corners and enhance the impression of roundness.

Martha had climbed to the fireplace, and was now circling it, gazing up at the "rotor". "Your ship must have made quite an impression," she observed.

"On Billy, you mean?" the Doctor asked, stepping up to join her. "Yes, I'd say this rules out at least the Vortex Manipulator theory, if not a few others I've come up with." It also ruled out a ride from any of his own incarnations prior to Nine. The decor was most definitely inspired by the TARDIS in her current, coral configuration.

Martha looked up to the second-floor landing "Let's check it out," she suggested with a smile.

"Race you to the top," the Doctor offered, darting for the left-hand staircase.

* * *

Martha was only two-thirds of the way up the right-hand staircase when the Doctor reached the landing and darted down the hall to the left. Deciding to split up and cover more ground, and hopefully delay his victory speech, Martha took the right turn at the top and opened the first door she came to. It was a spacious, full bathroom, with a second door leading to the adjacent room. The ceiling was lower than she'd expected from the construction of the main room, but still at least as high as any regular flat's. A quick look around revealed some towels, and to her immense surprise and relief, her own toothbrush and other toiletries.

"YES!" she exclaimed, closing the curtain of the combined bathtub/shower. "Maybe I won't be at Henriks for long, after all," she mused. If she'd somehow managed to stock the flat with her personal items, surely she and the Doctor would have provided for their financial -

She suddenly noticed the Doctor's toothbrush next to hers. Huh. Opening the mirror over the sink, she discovered his razor. So, sharing a bath. Maybe there's only the one? Or...

Martha moved hesitantly towards the door to what she presumed to be the bedroom. Naw. They wouldn't be sharing. Would they be? How much could things have changed between them during their time here? Impossible, she thought, fingering her pretend wedding ring. And even if anything had, would their future selves go so far as to set their past selves up as roommates?

The bedroom was closer to what she had expected, with its two-storey ceiling. Glancing back, she realized the low bathroom ceiling made room for a kind of a loft in the bedroom, but she didn't see any furnishings up there.

She couldn't be sure if it was disappointment or relief that she felt as she looked more closely around the room. There were more of her things out on top of the dresser, but none of the Doctor's. The bed was a queen, but so was her own bed on the TARDIS. She braced herself before she opened the closet, and then frowned at what she found - or rather, didn't find - inside.

It was empty.

"Now, come on," she complained aloud, thoughts of bunking with the Doctor temporarily pushed to the back of her mind. "Nothin'?"

She checked the dresser drawers, but all that turned up were some underthings and one pair of shorts and a sleep shirt. "At least there's that," she allowed. Why go to the trouble of leaving these things here, but not anything else? She decided it had to be the Doctor's fault, and he must have spun some line about more paradoxes or the like. Scowling at the nearly bare dresser, she noticed a note stuck to the top of the porcelain candy dish that she normally used for earrings back on the TARDIS:

"Bus fare", it read.

"Guess it's Henriks for me, after all," she sighed, replacing the lid over the handful of coins she found inside.

"Martha?" the Doctor called from right outside the open door to the bathroom. The Doctor's head poked through the door, promptly followed by the rest of him. "There you are," he said, smiling. "This must be yours, then," he observed, stepping more fully into the room.

"Yours the other way?" Martha asked, forcing herself to relax.

"No, I expect it's Billy's," he answered. "I don't really need one, do I?" he added.

"No," Martha laughed, hoping her chuckle didn't betray any of her early speculation or habitual daydreaming. "Guess not, 'specially if we're not gonna be here too long."

"Well, I'm starving, and I imagine you probably are, too," the Doctor announced.

Martha's stomach gave an involuntary answering growl. Why did he have to bring up food when they didn't have any cash beyond bus fare?

"And if my nose does not deceive," he said, tapping the side of his nose for emphasis, "we've got at least something of a stocked pantry in this place."

"We do?" Martha asked, surprised. He nodded, and Martha immediately darted towards the second bedroom door. "Oh, we'd better," she grumbled. "It'll almost make up for the lack of clothes if it's true."

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	5. Monday, Monday

_As yet un-beta'd._

* * *

 **Chapter 5 - Monday, Monday**

 _"...Can't trust that day_  
 _Monday, Monday  
Sometimes it just turns out that way_  
 _Oh, Monday morning  
You gave me no warning  
Of what was to be..."_

Martha let the radio alarm clock continue to play as she climbed out of bed. She found herself recalling how her Mum would often sing the first few lines of that song if the day was mentioned. It was an unexpected bout of nostalgia, but one she was able to get past fairly quickly as she swallowed past the lump in her throat and focused on what this particular Monday would hold in store for her.

"Off to the shop," she told herself, taking down the same outfit of the day before from its hanger. At least tonight, she should be able to have something new from Henriks to wear.

As she washed in the bathroom, Martha could hear the Doctor bustling around downstairs in the flat, or "Tiny TARDIS", as they'd decided to name it. It didn't have a library, or a swimming pool, or a wardrobe room (more's the pity), but it did come stocked with all they had needed for a much appreciated dinner the night before. And from the sound of it, the Doctor was cooking up quite a breakfast, as well - unless he had something completely unrelated to food sizzling in the kitchen. It wouldn't be the first time since she'd known him.

They hadn't spoken much about their circular paradox, last night. The Doctor had said he would get it sorted out that evening, since he wasn't tired at all and had found an entire jar of jelly babies in the pantry - they were apparently good for staving off the Time Lord equivalent of migraines or some such. Martha had agreed to leave him to it, but only if he promised to fill her in completely after work on Monday.

Martha returned to the bedroom from the en-suite, scooped up some change for the bus, and pocketed it.

She shut off the radio just as the distinctive intro to "I Heard It through the Grapevine" was beginning, and headed out into the hallway.

* * *

The Doctor had been sorting, and theorizing, and hypothesizing well into the night, before he decided to take a break and try to salvage his timey-wimey detector. He spread out the components on one of the small tables by the fireplace "console". The casing was completely shattered and mostly still strewn across the street where they had first materialized. The electronics would need to be re-worked (nothing he couldn't do with the sonic), but at least he still had the trans-phasal crystal; it would have been more interesting than he cared to imagine to try and track down a replacement for that. If Martha wasn't too fond of the stereo here in their Tiny TARDIS, he should have most of the components he would need, already. Of course, the detector would probably "ding" instead of "bleep", but he expected he could live with that.

The sun had already risen and The Doctor had just finished his initial schematics and list of needed parts when he heard Martha's alarm from upstairs. The parts he did have and his schematics were quickly scooped up and deposited in the appropriate pocket of his trench coat, before the Doctor set about cooking up breakfast. It was the least he could do to make up for Martha having to go out and be the bread-winner.

* * *

Martha was keenly aware of each agonizingly slow sweep of the second-hand as she shelved stockings and knickers at Henriks. The clock read 2:50PM when at long last the manager told her she could pick out whatever she needed against her day's wages, before the next shift came on.

The Doctor had said he didn't need anything from the store just yet, so Martha felt free to take care of her own needs, first. She found a pair of slacks, a comfortable top, and a not-too-mini dress; all of which she had eyed earlier in the day on the clearance racks and taken the liberty of removing to one of the back rooms. Thankfully, her fashion sense wasn't exactly in line with the priciest items. She was lucky to find this much within her range, but would have to wait to get anything else.

She changed before leaving, tucking her outfit from home into a Henriks shopping bag, and headed out, catching the bus back to the Tiny TARDIS.

As Martha entered their building, she was greeted by yet another exuberant declaration from Dana Phelen. "It's a girl!" the building manager announced from her place behind the front desk.

Martha figured she wasn't talking about her, so she offered, "Congratulations!"

It was apparently the right thing to say, because Dana launched into the details of her son's daughter's birth. "Two thirty-eight this afternoon, eight pounds, ten ounces, nineteen inches! Ella Kathleen," she informed her.

"That's beautiful," said Martha, happily catching on and remembering something the woman had said yesterday at their first meeting. "So, you're a grandma now, but I don't see you complainin'," she observed.

"Couldn't dream of it," Dana replied. "It's astounding how quickly time passes. Just you wait 'til you and that hubby of yours get started, the little ones'll be having little ones of their own before you know it."

Dana seemed to have a special knack for making Martha blush. "Time's funny," she told her, casually speeding up her walk across the lobby towards the hallway.

* * *

The Doctor looked at the wall with a nod of satisfaction. Behind the screens under the left staircase, a huge, decorative corkboard stretched across the flat's wall. He had put it to good use, covering the board with some papers from Sally Sparrow's folder, but mostly notes of his own, tracing out several complex theoretical timelines between the various bits of information using different colored strings.

Since all of the documents from Ms. Sparrow would be originated by her, the Doctor had decided to destroy anything they didn't need any longer. He was just collecting a small pile of such papers and photographs when he heard the door to the flat open.

"Martha, welcome back," he called, moving back out to the main living area.

"Honey, I'm home!" she answered exaggeratedly, as she closed the door behind herself. "What's all this?" she asked, indicating the stack of papers he was still holding.

"Destroying the evidence," he told her with a mysterious wink. He led her along up to the fireplace. "Would you like to do the honors?" he asked, handing her the first photo.

"Why're we burnin' it?" Martha asked. "I thought this was our 'to-do' list," she said, holding up the Wester Drumlins wallpaper photo.

"I've got notes," he answered, gesturing over at the concealed corkboard. "We just needed to know what it said. We'll paint it on just right, simply because that's how we've done it already for the picture. You'll see."

Martha hmmed, tossing the photo beneath the hood and watching as the flames quickly turned it to ash. "Next?" she asked, hand outstretched.

He looked back down to the pile. "Ah, won't be needing this anymore," he said, handing her a photo of the Weeping Angel.

"Never gonna look at a statue the same way again," Martha said, spinning it into the fire. After a moment, she shrieked, sitting back on the couch and reaching for the Doctor.

"What is it?" he asked, moving to peer into the flames. The photo was already curled and blackened.

"It - I thought," she stammered, "it's just," she swallowed, then took a breath and went on. "It looked like it changed for a second," she told him, tearing her eyes away from the fireplace at last. "First it was just the Angel with its face covered, an' then it was like a monster, all clawin' hands an' fangs." She shook her head and forced out a breath. "I dunno."

"It's ashes, now," the Doctor told her, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze as he double-checked. For good measure, he retrieved the poker and stirred the remnants into the hottest embers. "Probably a good idea to keep getting rid of this stuff, though," he added.

"'Specially the photos," Martha agreed, releasing her grip on him.

You can't kill a stone, the Doctor thought. What, exactly, had he been harboring in his pocket all this time? "Yes, the photos," he said, shuffling through the stack to make sure there were no more pictures of the Weeping Angels.

* * *

Martha hadn't been able to watch as the Doctor burned the only other Angel picture from the folder. She had made him poke that one to pieces, too, before they dealt with the rest of the papers.

After the burning, the Doctor brought her over to see the corkboard. "You been watchin' 'A Beautiful Mind'?" she asked. He claimed to be able to make sense of the lengths of string he had running between his notes, but she wasn't sure she believed him.

"Here," he huffed, pointing to a stick-figure drawing of what he said was the two of them with the TARDIS. "Follow the yellow line." He traced what was their timeline from London, 2008, to Wester Drumlins, 2007, to London, 1969, to where it intersected with a light blue line, "DI Shipton," he explained. The two were joined by a dark blue line, "the TARDIS", and then looped back to before their original arrival. "Here is where we'll purchase the flat, probably having Billy fix it up as our 'honeymoon suite", as Ms. Phelen put it."

"And from there?" Martha asked. "We'll just be free to do whatever?"

"Well," and here the Doctor started scratching his neck, "I'd like to see every piece connected, first. There's a lot left that isn't explained, yet. It might never be, but I just have a feeling it should. Be."

Martha looked closely. Sally Sparrow's green line connected to the TARDIS in 2007 and to the dragon hatching in 2008. There was a red line that split away from it, Kathy Wainwright, which connected to the letter from 1987.

"Like this," said the Doctor, seemingly following her silent train of thought. "Katherine Nightingale gets sent back and starts a new life in Hull," he explained, tracing the red string. "But why did she decide, only after so many years, to write to Sally Sparrow? She must have figured things out years before, but it was only here," he said, jabbing his finger where the string changed from red to brown (her grandson), "that she wrote everything out and set up delivery to Wester Drumlins."

"You think maybe we need to pay her a visit?" Martha asked.

"Maybe?" he answered, distractedly pulling at his hair and looking over the entire wall.

"Easy, ya don't wanna go bald," Martha told him, tugging on his sleeve. "Time for a break, yeah?" she urged. "We've got a while before Billy gets here, how's the timey-wimey detector?" she asked.

The Doctor let himself be guided back to the living room. "I'll have it put back together in time to find him," he answered, "but first I need to use some of the parts to create a control disk." As they sat down, he continued with a grin, "that'll be tonight's project."

* * *

 _To be continued..._

 _Sixties soundtrack: "Monday, Monday" by The Mamas and the Papas, "I Heard It through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye_

 _And, the thing about the photos is from Eleven's "The Time of the Angels": "That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel." (My theory is that although Sally Sparrow couldn't let the whole Doctor thing go, she never spent time really staring at her Angel pics. They creeped her out too much.)_


	6. Tempus Fugit, sed Non Satis

_Originally beta'd by **Faith-o-saurus** , before I went and rearranged things._

* * *

 **Chapter 6 - Tempus Fugit, sed Non Satis**

It seemed the Doctor was well-rested, sleep or no sleep, since Martha found him already laying out breakfast when she came back downstairs on Tuesday morning. She shook her head, amazed to see this side of him. Not too long ago, she had been the one bringing _him_ breakfast every morning.

"What's that look?" the Doctor asked her.

"D'ya actually eat on the TARDIS?" Martha asked. "An' I jus' never run into you in the kitchen?"

The Doctor glanced away. "Well... there's usually a lot more to... see to, " he answered, vaguely.

Martha's amusement at their situation quickly faded, with the suspicion that he might actually spend much of their time between adventures actually avoiding her... "Whatcha got planned for today, then?" she asked, with forced lightness. "The disk thingee done, yet?"

"Nope, not yet," he answered, matching her tone, and turning back to her, setting out the coffee. "Might need to forage a bit more for parts; should be done tomorrow," he told her. "I was thinking of doing some scouting along with my foraging, though. Thought we could do some sightseeing?"

"Where at?" Martha asked. "Just here in London?"

"BBC Television Centre," he specified. "Meet you at Henriks?"

"Yeah, three o'clock," she told him. "That where you wanna make the Easter egg?"

"Seems a likely candidate. Just need a little reconnaissance, first."

With that set, Martha headed off to work after breakfast. She found herself getting more into the mindless routine of things and therefore better able to really observe the customers and her coworkers. It was actually becoming fairly entertaining (if occasionally frustrating) to note the vast difference in fashions and attitudes that were only decades removed from her own time.

Still, it was a relief to see the end of her shift arrive. She picked out a single, nice pair of shoes against her earnings, wondering if she'd have a good opportunity to wear them with her new dress.

The Doctor met her as promised, and together they made the bus/underground journey over to Television Centre. They were able to join and then promptly slip away from a tour group, easily enough. Security wouldn't be an issue, the Doctor quickly determined, and they were able to locate precisely which studio they would need for their recording: colour cameras, check; Autocue, check; video recording facilities, check.

"Put this on the list of things to do after the detective inspector arrives," the Doctor observed. The video recording actually took place in the basement "hub" of the building.

"And I guess he'll be the one actually recordin' it, then?" Martha asked as they reemerged to join a departing tour group. "Seein' as how we're both on the transcript?"

"Shouldn't be any problem with that," the Doctor replied. "The only thing he'll need to keep secret from Sally Sparrow is how I get the folder," he said, patting his coat pocket, even though Martha knew most of the folder's contents were either pinned to their wall or already burnt. "She only realized that when we met," he explained. "But there shouldn't be any harm in Billy hearing the recording. He'll be the one putting the Easter egg onto the DVD's, after all."

"That," Martha acknowledged, "and we sort of owe him as much as we can explain, since we'll be leavin' him to start a whole new life, here."

"True," he agreed.

Dana only had wistful looks - rather than embarrassing conversation - for the two of them when they returned to their building, dutifully hand-in-hand. Martha wondered whether the personal stuff was saved just for her, or if the Doctor got his share, too, when he was on his own.

Back at the Tiny TARDIS, Martha cooked up dinner while the Doctor immediately dove back into his tinkering. He emerged only long enough to eat, and was still hard at work when Martha called it a night.

Martha didn't realize just how tired she was until she saw her bed. She made it through her ablutions by sheer force of will, before collapsing on top of the covers. It was only after half an hour that she roused herself enough to properly cocoon herself beneath the blankets.

* * *

After working all night and into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the Doctor still hadn't gotten the control disk recorder right, and it was truly starting annoying him. He had cannibalized Martha's phone (promising it would be reassembled with her address book intact) as well as his timey-wimey detector, but it seemed he would need to do some covert acquisition out in town if he were going to achieve a truly functional control disk. The hologram wasn't the problem; he'd already encoded a message that would be recognized and displayed by the TARDIS as soon as the disk passed the front doors. The sticking point was recording both the time/space coordinates and a remote activation sequence, all of which needed to be read and actuated through the console-mounted disk player.

The Doctor went back to paper, adding the recorder components to his list for the timey-wimey detector. Several of the simpler items should actually be available at Henriks; he could ask Martha to buy them with her salary. The rest would be more than she could afford in months, anyway. He would just have to do some creative borrowing. He might even have to stop by UNIT, if it already existed... maybe, tomorrow. But only if he really had to.

Looking over his schematics, the Doctor resigned himself to having made as much progress as he could at the moment. Several of the components he still needed were filled in with what he _would_ have used, were he still on the TARDIS. He'd have to improvise once he saw what was available here and now in London.

Time had gotten away from him, he realized, as he heard Martha's alarm sound. He didn't recognize the song that morning, but he could distinctly make out Martha's laughter after a few moments. He packed away the journal quickly, making a mental note to ask her about it when she came downstairs.

* * *

Marha awoke to an upbeat tune from her radio that she couldn't immediately place in her groggy state, but soon she soon broke into hysterical laughter as the bridge resolved into "I'm the urban spaceman," and a recitation of said spaceman's random qualities. How she had never associated the Doctor with the song she didn't know, but she'd never forget it, now.

She was still humming and grinning when she made her way downstairs, and the Doctor immediately noticed, despite - once again - working to finish up the breakfast preparations. "What _is_ that song, then?" he asked from his place at the toaster. "It's certainly got you in a good mood."

In answer, she started singing aloud, while spinning between the cupboards and the table, setting out the plates.

"I wake up every morning with a smile upon my face," she sang. "My natural exuberance spills out all over the place"

The Doctor smiled at her, but she hadn't gotten to the good part, yet.

"I'm the urban spaceman. I'm intelligent and clean. Know what I mean?" She poked him in the chest to make sure he knew he was the spaceman in question.

His eyebrows climbed as she continued.

"I'm the urban spaceman. As a lover second to none, it's a lot of fun."

The Doctor's eyes!

The smell of burning toast caught Martha's attention, and she nodded towards the appliance of concern. "That breakfast?" she asked.

The Doctor cleared his throat, and sprang the toaster with a buzz of his sonic screwdriver before gathering up the rest of their meal. "I've only got a few things that I need for you to pick up," he told her, sliding fried eggs onto their plates and taking the crispier (blackened) toast for his own.

And not addressing her song at all.

"Shouldn't be more than you've got coming for today's wages," he assured her.

"Not a problem," Martha agreed, still amused by this morning's wakeup. "Already picked up a few things for myself, yesterday," she told him, taking her own seat next to him at the table.

* * *

The Doctor's morning passed swiftly and successfully, once he had seen Martha off. Between the Imperial College, the Science Museum, and the psychic paper, he had acquired nearly all of the high-end items on his list for both the recorder and the detector. He would need to revisit the museum after hours for a couple of small tidbits that weren't immediately available, even to an eminent, sciencey, professor-type such as himself (or however the psychic paper had described him). If Martha was up to it, they could head back tonight, even.

He really did feel guilty about Martha's predicament, despite how quick she'd been to cooperate. He owed her so much, even beyond what she'd had to put up with from John Smith. Why, oh, why, with all of the circular paradoxes they had found themselves in, could he not have contrived a well-funded bank account? Even Martha had bus fare -

A bank account.

Yes! No. Yes! Could he? Should he?

The Doctor debated with himself on the way back to the flat. If he correctly recalled, the government had insisted on establishing an account for him, despite his Second self's own insistence that it was by no means either necessary nor desired. But did he want to risk yet another paradox, popping by the Brigadier's office and making himself known, before his Third self had the chance to arrive on the scene and explain his way through the mess that was regeneration? Could he risk changing his own history?

Or facing his history?

He made it back to the Tiny TARDIS before lunchtime. The Doctor waved to Ms. Phelen in the lobby, paying much less than half a mind to her inquiry and to whatever his response was. He had a date with the corkboard-under-the-stairs.

* * *

Martha found the Doctor working at the corkboard when she arrived back at the Tiny TARDIS. He spared her just a "hello" and a quick glance over the items she'd bought before returning to his notebook. She tried to see whether she could help, but his notes were in swirly Gallifreyan, and he was too engrossed to explain.

He did mention a possible late-night excursion and recommended she grab a snack and some shut-eye.

Martha left the merchandise on the breakfast table along with what looked like the Doctor's own acquisitions, and brought a sandwich up to her room. She figured she might as well use some of her free time for an extra-long shower, although, knowing the Doctor, she'd probably need a couple more after whatever he had planned for that evening.

* * *

The Science Museum was a piece of cake, the Doctor congratulated himself, as he and Martha shared some actual cake after their midnight infiltration. He _should_ be able to complete the control disk that very morning, and possibly even have the timey-wimey detector in working order by the time Martha got back on Thursday afternoon.

Then, he had it all planned out. Come Friday morning, he'd go see the Brigadier. He could pose as a stranded companion of the Doctor's. He could gain the Brigadier's trust and the bank account details, all without revealing anything about changing faces. Then, his Third self would be free to convince the Brig of all those pesky details himself. In the meantime, he'd pick up Martha from Henriks and take her to the bank with her paycheck, and surprise her with the knowledge that she was now free to quit whenever she liked.

The Doctor, with a sly grin at his own cleverness, said goodnight to Martha and sent her off to bed. He'd be getting a start on the recorder, now; he might as well clean up their dessert plates, too.

* * *

 _To be continued..._

 _The title means: Time Flies, but Not Enough.  
_

 _Stay tuned for: THE BRIGADIER! Who will be written mostly by Jonn Wolfe, since I know next to nothing about Classic Who._

 _Sixties soundtrack: "I'm the Urban Spaceman" by the_ _Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. I know, if you've never heard it, it's pretty hard to believe it actually exits!  
_


	7. Col Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart

_Much of_ this _chapter is the result of_ _ **Jonn Wolfe**_ _'s amazingly brilliant reviews and suggestions for the Brigadier, not to mention straight-up dialogue. If you don't like it, it's most likely whatever parts I either rearranged or rewrote for fluidity._

 _And, once again, I'll remind you all that "NewDrWhoFan" isn't just a catchy username; I've never seen a whole episode with the Brig in it in my life. I have, however, read a lot of awesome fanfiction that holds him as absolutely indispensable to the Doctor._

 _Originally beta'd by_ _ **Johnn Wolfe**_ _and_ _ **Faith-o-saurus** , before I went and changed things_ _._

* * *

 **Chapter 7 - Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart**

The Colonel politely waited until his superior had hung up the phone before slamming his own handset down on the receiver. As frequently interrupted as his weekends generally were, Saturday could not come soon enough. Did these idiots have absolutely no concept of what "rapid-reaction" meant? When it came to the potential threats posed by alien entities, waiting for the UN's first contact protocol was simply inadequate. The UK needed to be able to investigate on their own, with the strength of the military at their disposal. There simply wouldn't be time -

He was inconveniently snapped out of his reverie by the ringing of his phone, and surprised to find he had been pacing his office. With a single, deep breath to calm himself, he strode back to his desk, snatched up the handset, and answered with a clipped, "Yes?"

"Ah yes. Hello!" came a cheery voice over the line. "Am I speaking to Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, otherwise known as either Greyhound Leader or Greyhound One?"

He brusquely corrected the caller, "This is _Colonel_ Lethbridge-Stewart. To whom am I speaking?"

"Oh, sorry. Promotion _later_ this year," the man enigmatically replied. "Yes! Good! Well, it's a bit complicated," he continued, undeterred. "I was told to contact you on the off chance I got stranded in the late twentieth century."

"I see... Told by whom?" the Colonel inquired, disbelievingly.

"The Doctor," the caller simply stated.

"I beg your pardon?" he replied, although that would certainly be the only person he knew who would be worried about winding up in the wrong -

"Do I have to repeat myself?" the caller went on, apparently losing patience. "I don't think I have enough change for the phone if this keeps up."

The Colonel cleared his throat, just to let this person know that his own patience had been tested enough already.

"Sorry," the caller offered, "it's just that I'm stuck here 'til the TARDIS gets back, and there's actually, precisely _no_ telling how long that will be."

"Yes, quite," the Colonel allowed, as if completely empathetic. He resisted the urge to inquire as to which doctor, which psychiatric doctor, perhaps, had told him to call. The mention of the TARDIS told him this person was worth seeing, if only to further evaluate as a security risk. "Tell me your name, and where you are. I can have a car sent for you."

"Right... Smith! John Smith," the caller answered with what couldn't possibly be an alias of any sort. "And no need for a car, I'm actually calling from the payphone outside your headquarters. Security wasn't going to let me in, for some reason."

The Colonel closed his eyes. It was too early in the day for this. The man could very well be the Doctor himself, for all their similarities. He briefly wondered whether he had been inadvertently stranded, or purposely abandoned. He couldn't imagine the two getting on very well...

* * *

The Doctor smiled and waved the Brig over when he saw him emerge into the lobby... foyer... place at the front of headquarters. He'd still be the Brig to the Doctor's mind whether the man were a brigadier general or a private, let alone colonel. He made a mental note to try and track the man down further along his timeline so that they could have a decent chat. In the meantime, the Doctor had to stick with his cover story. "John Smith," he offered, holding out his hand.

The Brig shook it, then walked him over to sign him in. "John Smith," the Brig repeated to the corporal on duty, at which the Doctor pulled out the psychic paper as evidence. The Brig merely raised an eyebrow and finished his entry in the log book. "Mr. Smith," he invited, gesturing for the Doctor to walk with him, escorting him further into the building. The Brig made no move to initiate conversation until they were closed within his office. "So, you know the Doctor?" he began.

"Yes, I do," the Doctor told him. "I'm one of his assistants, in fact."

The Brig nodded, appraising him. "Still wearing that ridiculous fur coat of his?" he asked.

The Doctor had mixed emotions at that. He realized, on the surface, how ridiculous the coat had indeed been, but a part of him (the part of his psyche that represented his Second incarnation, to be precise) rebelled at the implication. Still, the Doctor managed, "Even in the hottest summers! Can you believe it?"

The Brig sat behind his desk, and asked, "So, how can I help you, Mr. _Smith_?"

His alias was uncomfortably emphasized, yet the Doctor continued with his request. "I seem to recall, that is, the Doctor told me, that after the Cybermen, you folks were trying to recompense him, even hire him on." The Brig nodded. "There was some mention of a bank account?" the Doctor prodded, at which the Brig narrowed his eyes. The Doctor held up his hands. "I wouldn't be asking, honest," he defended, "except that we don't know how long we'll be stuck here, and the Doctor mentioned it, brought it up himself, 'If any of you ever get stuck on Earth,' he said, 'UNIT should be happy to have you, and set you up quite nicely."

"UNIT?" the Brig asked.

"United Nations - or, Unified - Intelligence Task Force and you haven't actually started that up yet here, have you?" the Doctor realized even while he was answering. That would explain why he was still a colonel...

"No, not 'yet'," the Brig replied, standing to open his filing cabinet. "But, strangely enough, I had just been speaking to a rather short-sighted lieutenant general about something along those lines before you called."

The Doctor mentally reprimanded himself not to let his mouth get ahead of him.

"As it happens," the Brig continued, sitting back down to open a folder on his desk, "I have the account information on hand." He pulled over a pen and notepad. "How long have you been traveling with the Doctor, then?" he asked while he wrote.

"Oh, probably about three, maybe four years. Hard to keep track of time," the Doctor invented.

"Well, I must say that you're an improvement," the Brig assessed.

"Oh? How so?" asked the Doctor, unsure how to take the comment.

"You seem to be more on the mark," the Brig answered, glancing up briefly before returning to the file. "Despite the hair. That chap from Scotland was a bit flighty."

The Doctor defensively raised a hand to his hair before he could stop himself. Then, the second comment sank in. "Oi! I'll have you know that Jamie was spot on with most of his observations, no matter his style of dress, colloquialisms, or taste in women!"

The Brig put his pen down and sat back. "Well, then there was the young lady -"

"Who loved him!" the Doctor interrupted, his temper simmering if not entirely flaring. "Do you have any idea how ripped apart I was when the Time Lords forced them back into their own timestreams, removing everything they knew about me?!"

The Brig gave him a very pointed look. "Doctor?"

The Doctor replayed his last sentence in his mind. "Uhm... Hello," he greeted with a sheepish wave. He mentally re-reprimanded himself not to let his mouth get ahead of him.

The Brig smiled, and came back around his desk to shake the Doctor's hand properly. "Another face, Doctor? How many have you got, anyway?"

The Doctor opened and closed his mouth, scratching the back of his neck. How was he supposed to get around this one?

"Don't worry," the Brig chuckled, leaning back on his desk and waving a placating hand. "You're not the first you to come back to see me," he explained. "You were supposed to wipe the memories, so I'm not surprised you don't recall; that is, if you're not from even earlier than the last one."

"Ah. Alright, then." The Doctor still wasn't sure about what he could say -

"He explained about regeneration; was having a bit of a time after his latest, actually. I know I'll need to play dumb when you show up _trying_ to convince me of your identity. However," the Brig went on with a grin, "considering how you were, rather poorly, trying to _conceal_ yours, and as you in no way fit the physical description he gave me, it's probably safe for me to tell you."

With a relieved sigh, the Doctor allowed himself to collapse into the chair behind him. "That's quite a load off my mind," he admitted.

The Brig reached around for his notepad, tearing off the top page and handing it to the Doctor. "Anything else I can do to help?" he asked. "If you did want a government position -"

"Oh, no, no, no," the Doctor cut him off, sitting up straight. "Thanks. But no. Won't be doing that again anytime soon."

The Brig nodded. "Meaning you will have, then?"

The Doctor bent his head, cradling it in his free hand. "I should really stop talking."

"I'll try and stop asking," the Brig replied, kindly.

The Doctor looked up at the Brig's smile, then stood to shake his hand, again. "Thank you," he told him.

"Absolutely any time," the Brig told him with a wink.

Something in that look… "You knew who I was all along, didn't you?" the Doctor couldn't help but ask.

The Brig laughed. "Quite."

"What gave me away?" He had to know.

"Oh, your running gob," the Brig answered, "and the fact that you used 'John Smith'. Really, Doctor? Couldn't think up anything different?"

"Ah. Well, in my defense, I've been rather distracted of late," he defended himself. "You would be, too, if you had the nest of circular paradoxes I've got to deal with."

The Brig smirked, patting the Doctor's shoulder. "I think that's just a permanent state of mind with you, Doctor. But not to add to your concerns," the Brig continued before the Doctor could retort, "there are some other acquaintances of yours of whom I've been keeping track... Should I call them in? Perhaps there's something we could do to help with your current predicament."

The Doctor shook his head, backing towards the door. "Thanks, but no," he told him, feeling a growing knot of panic somewhere in his middle. "But I'll let you know if anything comes up!" And with that, he casually sprinted for the exit.

* * *

 _To be continued..._

 _ _Many thanks to **Jonn Wolfe**! The Brig was just going to be an aside, until his suggestions started rolling in :) If you're trying to compare the events of this story to the original air dates of _Doctor Who _episodes, please, don't hurt your head.__

 _I'll have to see who else the Doctor can run into while he's marooned, here..._


	8. You Can Take That to the Bank

_Originally beta'd by_ _ _ **Faith-o-saurus** , before I made some alterations...  
__

* * *

 **Chapter 8 - You Can Take That to the Bank**

"Nice job this week, Martha," her manager told her, handing over her paycheck.

Martha smiled politely. "Thanks," she said, taking the slip.

"We'll see you on Monday," he said, actually bothering to maintain eye contact until he had finished the sentence.

"Have a good weekend," Martha offered, before leaving the office to collect her things.

Martha had purchased just a few more things for herself, before her wages had been totaled up. It left them with enough for groceries, and maybe, Martha thought, even a dinner out somewhere. Billy (she presumed) had stocked the Tiny TARDIS well and it wouldn't take much to replace the perishables; but if the costs of their mission allowed, Martha was hoping to treat the Doctor, even if it were just to fish and chips, again.

Speaking of the Doctor, he had called earlier that morning, leaving a message to meet him before she either left the shop or cashed her check. It was a good thing he added that last part, because Martha was set to cash it at Henriks' own bank, as her new coworkers had suggested.

Martha found the Doctor just inside the main entrance to the building. "Hey," she greeted.

The Doctor turned and smiled at her. "Hey, yourself," he greeted. "How was your day?" he asked, extending a hand, offering to carry the shopping bag.

She handed it to him gratefully, "Thanks. Not too terrible; yours?"

"Goin' alright, I guess," he answered with a shrug, but with a secretive grin that he wasn't hiding very well.

He offered her his elbow, and Martha took it as he escorted her out through the front doors onto the pavement. "What've you got planned?" she asked.

"Well, I just thought, being married and all," the Doctor told her, "we might deposit your paycheck into a _joint_ account." He nodded ahead of them, to where a Barclays branch stood across the street.

"Oo-kay," Martha allowed. "Any reason it's not a _joint_ account at Henriks, then?" she inquired.

They stopped at the corner, and she could feel the Doctor almost bouncing on his feet before he turned to answer her. "Because _I've_ already got one over there."

Martha's eyebrows climbed as they stepped out to cross the street. "You gettin' a job after all?" she asked, incredulous. "I thought you still had too much tinkerin' and plannin' to do to work outside of the flat."

"I certainly do, so I'm certainly not," he replied. "However, remember that fiver from '68?" Martha nodded. "Well, that was actually from the seventies, _but_ ," he held up a finger for emphasis, stopping outside of the bank's doors. "as it turns out, I did actually earn some 'thank you' cash from the government that year, which I didn't want at the time, and which they therefore put away, probably as encouragement for me to stay on the next time I came 'round."

He opened the door for her, and followed her into the bank. "So, we can't actually use whatever's in there, right?" she asked.

"Why's that?" He looked truly puzzled.

"Well," she explained, "you're gonna be comin' back next year and you'll be stuck again, and you'll need the money, won't you?"

"No, no, no," he shook his head as he led her over to check in with a clerk. "I was an _unpaid_ scientific advisor for UNIT. At least," he stopped short, rubbing his chin, "I didn't take any money from them. I have no idea whether or not they kept funding my account."

Martha patronizingly patted his arm, but remained internally eager to get back to their carefree (regular-employment-free) life of exploration. If in the meantime she didn't need to go back to Henriks, that would certainly be a bonus.

After the Doctor explained to the clerk why they were there, they were led to a partitioned area with a couple of leather chairs in front of a desk.

Only a moment after they were seated, the banker came around the partition and offered his hand to each of them in turn. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith, welcome to Barclays," he greeted, "and congratulations!" he added as he moved around the desk to his own seat. "I understand we're making yours a joint account, on the occasion of your recent marriage?"

"That's right," the Doctor answered.

The banker nodded. "I have the account information from the clerk," he said, shuffling his papers, "I'll just need your identification, and we can set this right up for you."

"Uh, right," Martha said, looking to the Doctor to pull out the psychic paper.

To her surprise, he produced a couple of passports and laid them on the desk. "Will these do?" he asked.

The man nodded again as he looked through the passports. "Certainly, certainly. France? Was that the honeymoon?" he asked, looking back up at Martha and the Doctor. "I don't mean to pry -"

"No, yeah, it was," Martha answered. "A little warmer than back here," she added, remembering their first meeting with Dana.

The banker looked back down to his papers, filling in the information from the ID's, then passed a form back across the desk for them to sign. The Doctor and Martha each signed where indicated, then the banker took back the page with a smile. "Not too painful, I hope," he said, tucking the papers into a single file and standing.

"Not at all," the Doctor allowed, "but we would like to make a withdrawal along with a deposit."

The banker looked uncomfortable as he sat back down. "A withdrawal," he repeated, opening the folder.

"Anythin' wrong?" Martha asked.

"Well, I'm sorry to say," the banker answered, "all funds, down to the minimum balance, were withdrawn nearly a month ago." He glanced up at them, before returning his gaze to the papers. "Transferred to a William Shipton." He passed the record across the desk. "That is your signature, is it not, Mr. Smith?"

"Ah. Yes, it is," the Doctor answered, tugging on his ear. "I just meant, then -"

"He just meant," Martha cut in, "if there was any interest."

The banker shook his head, "I'm afraid that's calculated quarterly. However, we can certainly accept a deposit," he offered with a smile.

"We'll just do that, right, Dear?" she asked, looking to the Doctor while she laid her paycheck on the desk and signed it over.

"Of course, Dear," he answered with a painfully obviously forced smile as he slumped in his chair.

Martha didn't have it in her to tease him about the turn of events. He seemed at least ten times more disappointed than she was at the prospect of her heading back to work on Monday.

* * *

The Doctor was not pleased. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets as he strode out of the bank with Martha on one arm and her shopping bag around the other. After all he'd gone through, contacting the Brigadier, forging their passports, and even actually walking into a bank of all places, there was nothing. And he couldn't even blame another incarnation! It would be _this_ him, even after being stuck in their current situation, that would make the transfer...

"I've got plenty for this week's groceries," Martha offered as they waited for the bus. "And," she added enthusiastically, "You can connect some more dots on the corkboard. We know how Billy renovates the Tiny TARDIS, now."

She bumped his arm with her shoulder, and he made an effort to shake himself out of his slump. "Yes, exactly," he acknowledged. "But until he gets here and gets a look at what's left in his account, that still leaves you working at Henriks," he added with a frown.

"It's not so bad," she said, lightly. "Lunch at the café, an employee discount on whatever fashions aren't too horrendous; I can survive."

The Doctor would have been happy to continue to grouse, but Martha was persistent, dropping his arm to move and intercept his line of sight whenever he shuffled. "Alright, I'm sorry," he told her with half a grin of his own. "I wish there had been more for you now, but we'll just stick to the plan." Martha nodded, apparently satisfied, and took her shopping bag back from him. "The control disk is finally finished, and I should have the timey-wimey detector ready by tomorrow," he informed her, just so that she knew she wasn't the only one with a task.

"See?" Martha said, encouragingly. "Right on schedule. I can do the shoppin' while you work tomorrow, an' the TARDIS'll be back in no time."

As far as he could tell, she was right, so long as the control disk operated as planned. The programs needed to survive translation through DVD encoding, which could affect the accuracy of the coordinates or even render them completely ineffective. They knew from Sally Sparrow that it would at least work to dematerialize the TARDIS, so that much was encouraging.

"Thanks," he told Martha, as their bus pulled up.

"No problem," she smiled, then nodded towards the bus. "Let's go home."

 _Home_ , the Doctor thought. _Soon, I hope._

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	9. Not-So-Date Night

_Since I'm working from my 10Rose script, this chapter has to be one of the most painful yet, to redo for Martha. Oh, the loss of fluff and romance! (But crucial Martha development between "The Family of Blood" and "Utopia"...) It physically hurt to write the last line :(_

 _As yet un-beta'd._

* * *

 **Chapter 9 - Not-So-Date Night**

Martha found the Doctor already - or still - tinkering with the timey-wimey detector early Saturday morning. Instead of working out by the fireplace, he had the device spread out on a couple of tables near the corkboard. He really had been busy while Martha was at Henriks; one particularly large, green crystal announcing that the Doctor had added at least the Natural History Museum to his list of "donors" for the project.

The Doctor was fitting components into a new, less sleek, handheld case. He gave a reel a spin as Martha approached, and the detector emitted a short spurt of sparks, causing them both to jump. The "brainy specs" that had slid down to the tip of the Doctor's nose clattered onto the table top. "Is it s'posed to do that?" Martha asked, from where she'd ducked around behind his back.

"Not exactly," the Doctor replied, his shoulders drooping.

Martha patted said shoulders. "I'll scrape us up some breakfast," she offered.

The Doctor looked up at her. "You are far too good to me," he said, before turning back to his work and retrieving his glasses.

"Yeah, I know," she acknowledged with a grin and a ruffle of his too-perfect hair just as he popped off the timey-wimey's reel. She was sure he'd deny the squeak that followed her to the kitchen.

* * *

While they still had plenty of dry goods, the Tiny TARDIS' refrigerator was becoming rather bare. Fortunately, the neighborhood grocery was just a short walk from said Tiny TARDIS, so close, in fact, that the slight bend in the road didn't even conceal the apartment building. It was shaping up to be a gorgeous day with sunlight already pouring through the breaking clouds. Martha took her time after their early breakfast, walking down the sidewalk to explore the other small shops further from the park (most of which were still closed), and taking note of a decent-looking pub as well as several nice-looking restaurants.

Heading back to the grocery, Martha stocked up on all the fruits, vegetables, milk, and eggs she could carry. She didn't have a single doubt that the Doctor's labors would prove fruitful. She did, however, know that her Time Lord companion didn't exactly have a spotless record with, well, time. If Billy ended up being the only one she was shopping for, great. But if they wound up sticking around for a few days longer, it wouldn't hurt to be prepared.

Martha breathed a sigh of relief after she got back to the building and through the lobby with no more than a "Hello, Dearie" from Dana. She wasn't sure she could explain her feelings about the woman, but they were something of a mix between wanting to run and hide, and wanting to sit her down and chat for hours over tea. Still, she was relieved to reach the Tiny TARDIS, and shifted the bags in her hands to open the door.

As she stepped inside, the Doctor's voice announced, "And here she is!" A bell dinged, and the carton of eggs on top of the groceries gave a strange sizzle and POP! "Ah."

Martha really didn't have the words. Any words. The entire half-dozen eggs had exploded, covering her face, hair, and the shoulders of her coat. Standing just inside the doorway, eyes closed, she could only imagine the other groceries beneath, now all covered in half-cooked egg.

The Doctor had hurried over to her, babbling on about how he had tracked her approach to the door, and how they had better keep clear of the chicken coop, but at least the timey-wimey detector was working, isn't that great? and how could he help?

Martha wordlessly handed over the bags, then pushed enough of the glop out of the way to open her eyes. She was up the staircase, already turned toward her room, when she finally called back to him, "You can sort that, an' then do laundry after I'm in the shower." She spun back after closing the bedroom door, opening it just enough to add, "I might forgive you by tomorrow."

* * *

To the Doctor's immense relief, Martha's forgiving nature seemed to have asserted itself earlier than suggested. He was apparently extra fortunate that Martha had already secured a new outfit to wear. The Doctor had certainly been on grocery, laundry, and lunch duty, but afterwards the pair worked together on tidying up the Doctor's workstation, as well as their corkboard timeline.

"I'm still stuck on why she writes the letter when she writes it," Martha commented, fingering the string that represented Kathy Wainwright's grandson's line from Hull to Wester Drumlins. "How could it be anythin' but us?"

The Doctor nodded in agreement, rocking his chair onto its two back legs, hands in his trouser pockets. "I'd say we're almost definitely the ones who instigate that," he said, eyeing the different, intersecting lines on the board. "Unless something changes, I'm planning on heading there as soon as we're out of here."

"We should take Sally," Martha added.

The Doctor's feet slipped from the workstation table top, and his chair thudded to the floor as he blinked at her. "Why?" he half squeaked. "Things aren't tangled enough as it is?"

"Well," Martha shrugged as if it should be obvious, and sat on the table next to the new timey-wimey detector. "She went through all that stuff with Billy an' with the Angels, she put everythin' together for us to get through our time here an' make the clues for her." She looked over to the timeline. "Sure, we know she survived, but she lost her best friend with nothin' more than a letter. An' Kathy, she got sent back without anythin' from Sally." She turned back toward the Doctor. "It'd be a nice 'thank you', don't ya think?"

The Doctor mentally worked through the timelines. He had to triple check that he wasn't missing something... but there wasn't anything he could see to forbid it. With one last study of the corkboard, he nodded. "As long as we pick up Sally from _after_ she's handed me the folder, then... yes," he agreed, nodding to Martha. "We'll do it."

She slipped down from the table with a small cheer, then dashed over to the corkboard to make the necessary adjustments. The Doctor moved to stand next to her, humming his approval at the TARDIS' line, now connecting 1969, 2008, and then back to 1987.

"Thanks," she said, nudging his arm when she'd finished.

"Well," he demurred, "I feel like I do still owe you a bit, what with the exploding eggs and all. I'm taking care of dinner, too, by the way," he offered, as she looked up at him.

"Naw, dinner's my treat," she grinned. "An' I s'pose you're officially forgiven for that," she allowed.

"Thank _you_ ," he replied with a slight bow. "Your treat, eh?"

"Yesterday's payday; thought we could eat out, tonight," she offered with a shy smile.

* * *

About eight hours or so after Martha had first left the Tiny TARDIS with the Doctor, earlier that afternoon; she found herself on seated on a cushioned bench in the soon-to-be UNIT headquarters, nodding off on the armrest.

Dinner had gone well enough. Martha had been able to afford an actual, legitimate dinner and drinks at the pub, as she'd hoped. It was a little too noisy for much conversation, but since the Doctor's solution was to sit that much closer her as they ate, she had not complained. They'd ignored the matches on the televisions, choosing instead to observe the other patrons, speculating, among other things, on how many were actually native to the planet. He'd gifted her with her restored superphone, fully-charged and address book intact, thanking her for her sacrifice for the "cause".

Although the Doctor hadn't even commented on her new dress, it was soothing to Martha's pride to note at least a few heads in the pub were turned her way. It was probably the wedding bands that had kept anyone from approaching. That and maybe the way she had kept wanting to lean into the Doctor...

They had walked back to the Tiny TARDIS at sunset. After just a little more time in front of the corkboard timeline, Martha had called it a night.

She hadn't really known why she should feel so disappointed. She had just taken him out for the sake of it; she hadn't even meant for it to be a date or any kind of seduction. She shouldn't have expected him to respond any differently than he always had...

To her surprise, just as Martha had finally gotten herself washed and changed and settled under the covers, the Doctor came knocking on her bedroom door.

No sooner had Martha let him in, than he had unleashed a torrent of babble about meteorites, and meteorites that weren't actual meteorites, and aliens in Bristol, and the Bovedy meteorite in Ireland - but not for a few days, and he had just been up on the roof, and he would have to call the Briga-Colonel (to whom Martha had since been properly introduced), and was she ready to go, yet?

Then there was a flurry of activity involving the assembly of a rapid-reaction force to locate and identify the new arrival, and arguments over just how militarized it could or should be, the discovery of an alien political refugee, and the interviewing of said refugee - Lelilianchi was her name - back in Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart's office. It turned out that although Lelilianchi had been able to control her descent to earth, the powers-that-be on her homeworld had launched a device after her that would have no such delicacy in its approach.

The Doctor and the Colonel's scientists (the Colonel seemed to follow the techno-speak just about as far as Martha could, if that) were discussing how to deal with the pursuing missile which, as it turned out, was likely to become the very Bovedy meteorite the Doctor had mentioned (i.e., babbled about) earlier that evening.

Martha watched him as he worked, no longer even pretending to follow the rocket science. She really was at a loss when it came to where she stood - or wanted to stand - with the Doctor. Was she in love with him? Easily. Was it smart? Hardly. Would she still go to the ends of the earth for him? Probably - and that had her worried. She didn't want to pine over him. She'd already watched John Smith completely ignore her as a romantic interest; she'd put up with it for her love of the Doctor, to keep him safe. Martha wasn't about to slip off her pretend wedding band and march back to the pub to find someone to hook up with, but maybe it was time to stop even hoping for the Doctor to notice her that way. What he needed was a friend. And if Martha needed more? Well, maybe she needed to at least be more open to other prospects, without constantly comparing them to the time-traveling alien she hung out with.

Eventually, after several erased and redrawn schematics on a chalkboard, the Doctor summarized, "We'll take the TARDIS, when she comes back, encase the missile in - have you got enough cupric chloride? Yes, so we'll cocoon it so it'll super-heat in the atmosphere, reducing the missile to harmless fragments which you'll discover in Northern Ireland. Add that to the timeline!" he concluded; with the last directed to Martha, turning to her for the first time since she'd taken over the settee.

* * *

 _To be continued..._

 _I DON'T hate Martha, but I've got to bring her down before I can build her up._


	10. Note to Self

_Originally beta'd by **hibari heza** , before I went and rearranged things._

* * *

 **Chapter 10 - Note to Self**

The Doctor couldn't help but keep an eye on the Timey-Wimey detector all morning long. He had calculated Billy's arrival to be somewhere around 4 PM (Sally Sparrow's notes left a disappointingly large amount to geusswork), but the sooner he did get here, the sooner they could get going.

Still, there was at least a small bit more with which they could busy themselves and be constructive. "Here we go," he announced, climbing up to join Martha by the fireplace and dropping the transcript onto the small table beside her.

"What's next, then?" she asked, twisting around on her couch to face him on the adjoining one.

The Doctor set two, black marking pens down on top of the pages. "Only Sally Sparrow's comments are going to be on the Autocue for the recording," he explained. "We can leave the timing marks, but black out anything that we contribute to the conversation."

"Hang on," Martha said, closing her eyes to process what he'd said. "We're blackin' out our parts, an' leavin' only hers?"

He nodded.

"Because...," she answered for herself, looking him in the eye again, "we'll say everythin' we need to, jus' 'cause that's how we already did it for it to be on the Easter egg in the first place?"

"Circular paradox!" he replied, proudly bopping her nose with the capped marking pen before she snatched it away.

Martha shook her head, smiling as she drew half of the papers onto her lap. "I'm gonna pretend I actually understood what I just said."

"Too, too modest," the Doctor chided, knowing that she did, indeed, grasp an impressive amount - for a human. "But assuming we have a third conspirator tomorrow night, we can transfer this to the Autocue, record our video, and tick off the very last block on our to-do list," he observed.

Martha looked over at him, squinting her eyes. "Hang on, again," she said, capping her marker, "what about Wester Drumlins? Don't we have to wallpaper it or somethin'?"

"Well, that's for tomorrow, too," the Doctor replied, nodding. "We'll head over there, first, then I figured we'd be covertly entering the Television Centre sometime after regular business hours."

"Breakin' in after dark, you mean?" Martha corrected.

"When did I say that?" he demurred with a smile.

He returned to his portion of the transcript, eventually lining through "Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck".

The Doctor involuntarily shuddered, remembering standing in that room with Martha, surrounded by the Angels; and marveling at the sequence of events that will have somehow spared Sally and Lawrence from sharing their fate.

"And done!" Martha announced, replacing her pages on top of the Doctor's on the table. "Now, what?" she asked.

As Martha spoke, the Doctor noticed the whole room suddenly lighten. "Clouds are breaking!" he observed with a smile, watching the effect that the Tiny TARDIS's windows and mirrors produced. Billy will have done some very clever redecorating, indeed. "How 'bout a picnic in the park?" he suggested.

* * *

They had walked to Hyde Park, the Doctor describing his encounters with the various historical figures enshrined there. Sometimes he mentioned the names of his companions at the time. Other times he only said "we", leaving Martha with the distinct impression that it was probably Rose... especially with Prince Albert and Queen Victoria.

As the Doctor was waxing nostalgic about werewolves, a distinct "DING!" sounded from the timey-wimey that Martha had been carrying. "May I?" he asked, and Martha traded him for the remains of their sack lunch.

"Be my guest," she allowed, watching him eagerly twist the dials.

The Doctor changed the setting on his sonic screwdriver, then clipped it back into the detector. The "dinging" sped up as he swept it around from the north to the west, dropping off again as he angled it more southward. "Right where he's s'posed to be," he murmured, "a bit earlier than I'd guessed, but that was just a guess." He looked at Martha and with a nod of his head in the direction ahead of the timey-wimey asked, "Shall we say 'hello' to Detective Inspector Shipton?" he asked.

"'S about time," she answered, clasping his outstretched hand in her own and running off in the direction of the newest arrival.

* * *

Billy Shipton closed his eyes tightly, and counted to ten. When he opened them, he was still on the bus surrounded by the sixties-era, fancy-dress play-actors.

He closed his eyes again.

"And there's the moon landing, can't forget that," the man's voice went droning on and on from the seat beside him.

"I think he gets it, what the tenth time?" the woman scolded him. Then, "Oh an' we're right by the park. There's the free concerts at Hyde Park."

"This is nineteen sixty-nine!" the man enthused. "Just wait 'til July."

Billy opened his eyes more cautiously, still hopefully, but then diverted his gaze when he saw that the interior of the bus still hadn't changed. Instead, he looked out of the window, searching for his stop.

At long last, the moment came. As the vehicle halted, he pushed ahead out of the doors. Once his feet hit the pavement, he was sprinting down the street towards his station.

He wasn't looking at the shops. He wasn't studying the pedestrians. He wasn't noticing any of the vehicles. He just needed to get back to the police station, and find that psychiatrist he'd been avoiding and demand an immediate session.

Soon, he was there, just across the street from the station, waiting for the light to change. That was when they caught him up, the two loonies who'd found him in the car park.

"We're just trying to help," the man repeated as they came to a halt at his side. "Look around yourself. You're a detective; detect!"

Billy wasn't having it. He crossed with the light, and jogged into the building.

And stopped, cold.

Almost nothing was the same. He didn't recognize a single face. The uniforms were different. The haircuts were definitely different. Even the paint on the walls was different!

"What's GOING ON?!" Billy shouted, finally turning to face his determined pursuers.

A clerk on duty at reception asked, "Can I help you with somethin?"

Billy looked over at him, and realized immediately that the officer's polite tone was not at all reflected in his eyes. That, and the metal flip calendar on his desk read "SUN 20 APR".

"It was Saturday," Billy said quietly, to himself. He looked up at the officer and shook his head. "Naw, thanks. Sorry." He glared at the man and woman with him, then nodded towards the doors for his pursuers to accompany him back outside.

Once more out on the sidewalk, Billy faced them at last. "It was Saturday," he told them, firmly. "Saturday, the ninth of June, in the Year of Our Lord two thousand AND SEVEN!"

The man nodded, exaggeratedly. "And... now it's Sunday, the twentieth of April," he gave a wary glance to his companion before finishing, "nearly forty years earlier."

Billy clasped his hands to his head, and shut his eyes in one last, desperate squeeze. Eight... nine... ten. They were still there, still watching him, expectantly.

And the world around him was still as crazy as it had been for the whole ride over here.

He reluctantly let his arms drop to his sides. "So, I'm Billy," he said, at last, and held out his hand. "Billy Shipton."

* * *

"That's it, there!" the Doctor announced.

Billy looked up as they walked, catching sight of the last apartment complex on the block, as indicated. "That's my new flat?" he asked.

Martha nodded. "Mm-hm," she answered. "Bought an' paid for, an' beautifully renovated."

"Alright, let's try this again," Billy said. "You're from the future, like me -"

"Sort of," the Doctor agreed.

"An' you know that everything we do here in the past is going to let Sally Sparrow do everything she needs... to let us do everything we need to do here..." Billy trailed off, shaking his head.

"Sally's the key," the Doctor agreed, sympathetically patting Billy on the back. "In 2007, She'll be the one to put an end to the Angels."

"The Angels, the statues, that... sent me back in time."

"Us, same as you," Martha affirmed.

"But the only way she's going to be able to do that, is with the clues that we leave for her, here in the past," the Doctor repeated.

"An' you know the future-future, because you're usually time-travelers to begin with." The Doctor nodded. "Then couldn't you have stopped it all... then?"

"That would have been a paradox," the Doctor told him, shaking his head.

"Yep," said Martha. "Like a killing your grandfather before your father was conceived sort of thing."

"Add to that," the Doctor went on, "the fact that we didn't quite recognize it at the time, but still. Paradox."

"So, our job in the past, well, my job," Billy clarified, "is to just stay here, now?"

"I am sorry," the Doctor told him. "If all works according to plan, yes. Your message to Sally will be from your much older self, sometime after you've met her the first time."

"That was just an hour ago!" Billy said, shaking his head, again. "I have her phone number right here," he pulled the slip from his pocket, "but she hasn't been born yet. _I_ haven't been born yet. My mother's not even in this _country_ , yet!"

Neither the Doctor nor Martha had anything to answer, until they finally reached their building.

"We're here," Martha told him, gently. "An' you're gonna love Dana, the manager," she said with a smile. "Least, she's pretty fond of you," she added.

* * *

Billy was still shaking his head at Dana's enthusiastic greeting. How many more people who already knew him was he going to meet, today? Thankfully, the Doctor had ushered him through the lobby with apologies about his "long trip" and catching up with her tomorrow.

As they stopped in the hallway at the door to the flat, Martha announced, "Welcome to the Tiny TARDIS," and opened the door.

Billy stepped in, and did a double-take. "Not what I expected," he said aloud.

"That's all thanks to you," the Doctor told him, patting him on the shoulder. "Once we do get our ship back, it seems you'll get at least the one ride back to three weeks ago, then spend that time turning a drab old flat into this fairly decent rendition of my magnificent time-and-space ship."

"I've knocked down a wall or two in my day, with my Dad at our old place," he admitted, "but I'm really going to be outdoing myself, here." He was definitely impressed, but still not quite able to muster the Doctor's level of enthusiasm.

"You look beat, if ya don't mind my sayin'," Martha told him. "You're room's up this way," she said, leading him up the left hand staircase.

"We're on the other side of the flat, for now," the Doctor said, indicating the opposite direction once they'd reached the landing, "But you'll have the place to yourself after the TARDIS returns." He led Billy and Martha down the hall to a door. "Just the way you left it," he said, turning the handle, then stepping out of the way for Billy to enter.

Billy walked inside, and took a look around. This was definitely his style, he couldn't deny that. And the accommodations weren't anything to scoff at, either. There was an en suite, a king-sized bed, dresser, desk, even a television. The closet held sixties-style clothing that he wouldn't be embarrassed to wear, and that he might have picked out himself.

If the Doctor could be believed, he will have - had - done - exactly that.

"We'll leave ya to get settled?" Martha asked from the doorway.

"Yeah, thanks," Billy told them, still inspecting the room.

He didn't realize how physically exhausted he was until the door closed. He gratefully collapsed on the large, comfy bed. He would have gladly fallen asleep right then, shoes, jacket, and all, if he hadn't lain down on what sounded like paper.

He rolled off of the bed and searched under the covers, pulling out a folded page addressed to himself. He sat on the edge of the bed and unfolded the paper, amazed to see a letter written in his own hand:

 _13 April 1969_

 _Hey, Billy,_

 _So, the Doctor, he is legit. He and Martha are actual time travelers, and the Wester Drumlins police box was their time and space ship. It is absolutely incredible! I cannot wait for you see her; you are going to love her. Honest. Would I lie to me?_

 _Welcome to 1969, I guess. After spending the last few weeks here, I can honestly say it's really not so bad. There is a lot to look forward to, as I'm sure you have heard._

 _I am sorry about Sally Sparrow; we won't ever be able to see her again until we live our way back to at least '07. But it is nice to have such a gorgeous face to put to our mission, here. And there is another Sally that you are going to be meeting again, soon. I just saw her, myself (for the first time for her), and I'm thinking she may just be worth it. Ask her out for me?_

 _You have the keys to a painter's van in your top dresser drawer, along with a chequebook (you won't need it; have a look at the ledger, but just leave it for when I get back). The van is here, down in the apartment's car park, already loaded and ready for Wester Drumlins. Like the Doctor will have explained, in 30-some years there will be those crazy, time-zapping, angel statues on the premises, but don't worry about that, now. Now, you have a noon appointment tomorrow to wallpaper the estate of Sally Wilshire's great-aunt._

 _I can't tell you much about my time here, only what you need to know to get back to March. The Doctor and the lovely Miss Jones will explain what they can. Just take it from me, we can trust them._

 _Yours Truly,_

 _\- William G. Shipton_

 _PS - And say "hi" to Mama Dana for me!_

Billy stood from the bed, and moved to the chest of drawers. Sure enough, the keys and chequebook were right there. He flipped through the ledger, taking note of the cheques written to hardware stores, an automobile dealership, cash withdrawals at the bank - and the balance was still solidly in the six figures range.

He looked again at the letter from himself, then folded it up and left it in the drawer. Kicking off his shoes and tossing his jacket onto a chair, Billy climbed back into the bed, and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

 _He's here!_

 _To be continued..._


	11. Let's Do This

_Originally beta'd by **hibari heza** , before I went and rearranged things._

* * *

 **Chapter 11 - Let's Do This**

Billy Shipton awoke, beating at the air over his bed. In his dream, he had been fighting his way out of a tightening circle of stone angel statues. Now, he found himself in a lit, strange room. It only took a moment for the afternoon's events to come back to him, and he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the still-made bed. He rubbed at his face, then stood, finding the en suite and trying to plan out his next move.

If he was to believe what was being told to him, he was in the middle of a sci-fi, time-traveling tangle, complete with his older self telling him from the even more distant past to trust the two characters that had picked him up.

If he was to question the story, he was at the complete mercy of those same characters - if they even existed - since they were apparently capable of altering his mental state beyond any drugs he'd ever heard of. He couldn't guess what they might be after, it wasn't like he was a secret government agent or anything. All of the investigations he'd participated in were a straightforward matter of public record. They weren't trying to rob him - they were the ones giving him the checquebook...

Billy decided to try and hear them out. The more they tried to explain, the more information he got, the better he could see whether the pieces actually fit. And just for now, he'd keep the letter's existence (and the van and bank account) to himself.

* * *

Of all things, even more than a letter from himself, it was the kitchen of the Tiny TARDIS that finally put Billy Shipton's mind at ease.

Pots, pans, plates, utensils; it was all laid out as a larger-scale duplicate of his own flat. He didn't need to search for anything in the pantry; everything was right where he would have stored it. He even found his habitual Tabasco sauce assortment - a large, opened bottle in the 'fridge; and several, travel-sized bottles stored with the dry goods.

Once Martha and the Doctor had caught on to his discovery, they put their services at his disposal. Billy had Martha frying the potatoes, while the Doctor sliced vegetables and ground some ginger root.

But the last straw for the (former) detective inspector was when he took a look in the freezer. There, in the back, he'd found a Tupperware container of his personal, mother's-own-recipe, pre-made, Yorkshire puddings - labelled in his own handwriting, of course.

* * *

After their dinner, the Doctor had seen to it that the corkboard timeline was somewhat sanitized before inviting Billy over to have a look. Martha and the Doctor's first meeting with Sally Sparrow had been removed, now reading simply as the TARDIS' line from "Future". The date of Sally's second meeting with Billy (and all further dates in her timeline) had disappeared, as well. Also, Billy's two meetings with Sally Sparrow no longer shared a single pin; but, rather, the strings were almost imperceptibly separated.

"This board doesn't give you a headache?" Billy asked from where he sat in one of the two chairs at the workbench, tracing the strings with his eyes.

"Oh," the Doctor said, standing from where he sat on the opposite edge of the table, next to Martha's chair. He reached a hand into the front right pocket of his suit jacket. "Jelly baby?" he offered, proffering the bag of sweets. "It takes some getting used to," he allowed, while Billy opened the candy, "but the gist is simple enough. Your mission is to see to it that 'A', the Easter egg with the TARDIS' control program is encoded onto every single DVD in Sally Sparrow's personal library," the Doctor picked up the list of seventeen DVDs from where it lay on the workbench, "and 'B', to tell her - when the time is right - to look at that list."

Billy accepted the paper from the Doctor. "Her entire library... only seventeen? Really?"

The Doctor ignored the comment. "The next time you see her," he reiterated, "you'll give her this message: 'Look at the list.'"

Billy waved the paper "Why don't I just hand her the list?" he asked.

"She'll have it already," Martha explained. "She just needs to know that the list is the next step."

"And," the Doctor put in, urgently, "once the disks are encoded, once every movie's been published, that page needs to be destroyed."

"Why's that?" Billy asked. "Why not give it to her sooner, or send it to her. We could actually explain -"

"You can't," the Doctor told him, not unkindly. "The pieces have to come together exactly the way they came together. You can't see her at all, not until she finds you."

Billy's eyebrows rose, disbelievingly. "Just because future-me told her that's what you told now-me?"

"More than that," the Doctor insisted. "If you don't destroy that list, if you do _anything_ to alter events as they've played out for Sally Sparrow or for any of us," the Doctor fixed him with his most stern, don't-mess-with-the-Oncoming-Storm glare, "it could rupture the entire paradox, tearing a hole in space and time and destroying two-thirds of the universe!"

"Two-thirds," Billy repeated, wide-eyed.

Martha shrugged, "More or less," she amended, significantly diminishing the effect the Doctor was going for. Then, she reached for Billy's hand. "An' we're really sorry, Billy, but you haveta hear this. That day you see her again," she said, glancing back at the Doctor. He nodded. "That one and only time," she said, turning back to Billy, "that's the day that you're goinna die."

"Die?" Billy looked from Martha, to the timeline, and back to the Doctor.

"Once you meet her," the Doctor confirmed, "you'll have until the rain stops."

"It was raining just before, when we met," Billy said, sitting back in his chair as Martha gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze. "Do I get to know when it'll be?" he asked, looking between her and the Doctor. "Or, do I spend my whole life searching for her whenever it's cloudy?"

"You'll be in hospital," the Doctor allowed. "And it will have to be sometime after your first meeting."

"So, I've got at least until 2007, but no promises, after."

"No promises," the Doctor confirmed. "I'm sorry."

Billy looked hard at the page in his hands. "So, how does she get the list, if it's destroyed?" he asked.

It was Martha who answered. "As long as everything goes the way it went, she'll just have it by the time you see her, again."

"On the day I die," he reminded himself. "And you're not going to tell me how you even know all this?"

Martha let her hand slide away from Billy's and glanced at the Doctor, who shook his head and answered. "Sally'll figure that out for herself. And that's _why_ you can't ever know."

Billy took several, long moments, before folding up the paper and sliding it into his jeans pocket. "So, this list," he said, resting his hands on the tabletop. "It's the next step for Sally Sparrow when I meet her again, but it's not all that we have to do. What's next for us?

* * *

Billy looked around the BBC Television Centre's video recording hub, still not completely believing he was there.

The Doctor and Martha had told him their plan: to get some sleep at the Tiny TARDIS, then spend Monday tying up the wallpapering and video-taping loose ends of the paradox.

 _"Why not tonight?"_ he'd asked. _"I'm not getting any more sleep with all this buzzing around in my head. And it was an earlier time zone where I left."_

They'd taken the bus to Television Centre, since Billy still wanted to play his future-past's letter close to the vest. He had felt bad, listening to Martha talk about heading back into work the following morning; but if this late night excursion went according to plan, he'd offer to drive her into work in the morning himself, so that she could quit.

As they had approached the building and the Doctor went to open the first, locked door, Billy's eagerness had deserted him. _"I - I can't do this,"_ he'd stammered out. _"I'm a police officer!"_

 _"Not here,"_ the Doctor had reminded him. _"Not anymore."_

The monitor for the studio the Doctor had chosen flickered to life, and a red light glowed by the intercom switch on the recording console.

The Doctor's voice asked, "You all set, Billy?"

Billy pressed the switch. "I'm getting the camera feed, hang on." He started the recording. "Taping, now."

He heard some muffled interaction between the Doctor and Martha, this time from the camera's mic. Then, the Doctor, himself, appeared on the monitor, sitting fairly still while the camera swung to center him and focus.

After a few more moments, Martha called, "A-and, action!" Then, "Uh, no, hang on - can you?" The Doctor moved out of frame, then Martha's voice was heard, again. "'Kay, got it. Action!"

The Doctor appeared, once again, resuming his seat in front of the camera. He put on his eyeglasses, then waited a few beats before beginning. "Yup. That's me... Yes, I do..." he said, following the blacked-out transcript they had brought with them.

Billy just shook his head, at the ridiculousness of it all.

"I'm a time traveler," the Doctor went on. "Or, I was. I'm stuck in 1969."

Martha suddenly appeared at his side on the screen. " _We're_ stuck," she corrected. "'All of space an' time', he promised me. Now I've got a job in a shop. I've gotta support him!"

Billy's guilt at keeping his bank account a secret returned, and he resolved to tell them the truth as soon as they finished here.

"We have got big problems, now," the Doctor continued with his message to Sally Sparrow. "They have taken the blue box, haven't they? The Angels have the phone box."

Billy remembered the moment, as if it were that morning... which it actually had been. Sally had just left the impound garage, with that beautiful blush coloring her cheeks; and he had turned back to the police box, surprised to find the stone Angels surrounding it.

"Creatures from another world," the Doctor's voice narrated.

Billy had - stupidly, he knew, now - walked right up to them, and everything he'd known had vanished in an instant.

The Doctor's demeanor on the transmission suddenly changed, as he announced, "And that's it, I'm afraid. There's no more from you on the transcript; that's the last I've got." He pulled off his glasses, again. "I don't know what stopped you talking, but I can guess. They're coming. The Angels are coming for you."

Sally Sparrow, thought Billy. If all of this was going to somehow save her - and finish off the Angels in the process - he supposed it could be worth the trouble.

"... And don't blink," the Doctor warned. "Good luck. A-and, cut! That's it, Billy." The Doctor pocketed his glasses, then pointed off-camera. "Make sure we take that with us, Martha?" Then he stood and walked towards the camera. "I'll just get the -"

The image winked out as the Doctor presumably shut off the camera in the studio.

Billy stopped the recording and removed the tape. Picking up a marking pen from the recording console, he wrote, "Angels - Don't Blink - 1969" on the label.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


End file.
